our ranks made
by the calling-up of the Naval Reserve--accentuated by the enlistment of
merchant seamen in the Navy--the Board of Trade could see no menace to
the sea-transport service in the military recruitment of our men. It was
apparently no concern of theirs that we sailed on our difficult voyages
short-handed, or with weak crews of inefficient landsmen, while so many
of our skilled seamen and numbers of our sea-officers were marking time
in the ranks of the infantry. Under pressure of events, it was not until
November 1915 they took a somewhat hesitating step. This was their
proclamation; it may be contrasted with Captain Greenville Collins's
preface.

"MAINTENANCE OF BRITISH SHIPPING

"At the present time the efficient maintenance of
our Mercantile Marine is of vital national
interest, and captains, officers, engineers, and
their crews will be doing as good service for
their country by continuing to man British ships
as by joining the army.

"THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF TRADE."

"AT the present time"! Possibly our Board was writing in anticipation of
the completion of the Channel tunnel, or of a date when our men-at-arms
and their colossal equipment, the food and furnishings of the nation,
the material aid to our Allies, could be transported by air. "As good
service"! An equality! An option! Was it a matter of simple balance that
a seaman on military service was using his hardily acquired
sea-experience as wisely as in the conduct of his own skilled trade, as
efficiently as in maintaining the lines of our oversea communications?
Events at this date were proving that we had no need to go ashore for
fighting service.

In the first violence of unrestricted submarine warfare, the Board
advanced little, if any, assistance to the victims of German savagery.
Their machinery existed only to repatriate torpedoed crews under warrant
as "distressed British seamen"; they were content to leave destitution,
hunger--the rags and tatters of a body covering--to be relieved and
refitted by the charitable efforts of philanthropic Seamen's Societies.
To them--to the kindly souls who met us at the tide-mark--we give all
honour and gratitude, but it was surely a shirking of responsibility on
part of our Board that placed the burden of our maintenance on the
committee of a Seaman's Bethel. As a tentative measure, our controllers
advanced a sche