Page:The Blight of Insubordination.djvu/23

15 engineers have benefited by, and appreciated, having crews amenable to ordinary discipline; of this, however, later. Sir, chairman of the famous P. & O. Company, has distinctly stated that without Lascar crews it would be impossible to maintain their services with anything like their usual regularity and precision. We hardly need remark how obvious it was that Mr. 's agitation regarding the crew spaces of the P. & O. steamers was not due to his particular solicitude for the material comfort of the Lascar, or from humanitarian motives either, but from aggressive trade unionism, pure and simple. That very interesting case which has settled once for all that the Lascar is entitled to the same amount of space for accommodation as the European seaman may be very gratifying to the vanity of the secretary of the Seamen's and Firemen's Union, as something achieved to show his usefulness to his clients, though he must know quite well that it will not help them to recover the employment they have forfeited; for it does not require much of a prophet to anticipate its effects upon the Company who contested the claim, and accepted the decision with such calm philosophy. Sir Thomas Sutherland has remarked that without Lascar crews the services could not be efficiently maintained; the little extra space required for the numbers they carry or a compensating reduction in the number is a very simple affair. Here, however, the passenger stands to lose, while the Seamen's Union does not gain, for the reduction of numbers will be made from the supernumeraries, principally punka boys, whose chief business was to dance attendance on passengers at games and sports, and whose wages^ were generally tips!

There is no State regulation as to how many seamen a ship shall carry. The owner alone decides this for himself, as is clearly stated in the "Instructions to Surveyors of ships appointed by the Board of Trade."

The proper measure of a ship's crew in regard to