to sea; our conveniences are notably improved, our
ships the last word in strength and comfort. Our company? Our company
fits to the heave of our sea. If we have middling men for the trough, we
have bold gallants for the crest. We draw a wide range to our service.
The sea can offer a good career to a prizeman: we can still do
moderately well with the wayward boy, the parents' 'heart-break,' the
lad with whom nothing can be done on shore. Steam has certainly given a
new gentility to our seafaring, but it cannot wholly smooth out the
uneven sea-road. If we lose an amount of polish, of distinguished
association, of education in our recruitment, we may gain just that
essence that fits a man for our calling. Our company is, at any rate,
stout and resolute, and, without that, we had long since been under
German bondage.

[Illustration: THE MERSEY FROM THE LIVER BUILDINGS, LIVERPOOL]

The war has brought a new prominence to our sea-trade. The public has
become interested not alone in our sea-ventures, but in our landward
doings. The astonishing fact of our civilian combatance has drawn a
recognition that no years of peace could have uncovered. Not least of
the revelations that the world conflict has imposed is the vital
importance of the ships. Our naval fleets were ever talked of, read of,
gloried in, as the spring of our national power, but not many saw the
core of our sea-strength in the stained hulls of the merchants' ships.
They were accepted without enthusiasm as an existing trade channel; they
were there on a round of business and trade, not dissimilar to other
transport services--the railways, road-carriage, the inland canals, the
moving-van, the messengers. They were ready to hand for service; so near
that their vital proportions were not readily apparent. Perhaps the
greatest compliment the public has paid to the Merchants' Service lay in
this abstract view. One saw an appreciation, perhaps unspoken, in the
consternation that greeted the first irregularity in delivery of the
oversea mails. Then, indeed, the importance of the ships was brought
sharply home. It was incredible: it was unheard of. Mercantile practice
and correspondence had outgrown all duplications and weatherly
precautions; the service was so sure and uninterrupted that no need
existed for a second string to the bow. Bills of exchange, indents,
invoices, the mail-letter, had long been confided to sea-carriage on one
bottom. Pages could be written of t