daylight broke,
a search-party found the little songster's cold, clammy
body. They wiped the yellow sand from his eyes and closed
them, and in the course of the day his fellow-victims were
laid at rest beside him.

CHAPTER XV

MANNING THE SERVICE

At the present time there is much writing and talking as to
how the merchant service is to be kept supplied with seamen.
Guilds, Navy Leagues, and other agencies of talk have been
set at work to solve what they term a problem. Theories that
are exasperating to read or listen to have been
indiscriminately forced upon an enduring public; and after
all the balderdash and jeremiads that have flowed copiously
over the land we are pretty much where we were. The modern
shipowner and his theoretic friends prefer to waste their
energy in concocting theories to solve an imaginary
problem--the only problem being that which exists in their
own minds. There is nothing else to solve. Once the mildew
is out of the way and the doors are set wide open, we shall
soon have a full supply of recruits. During the last few
years several steamship owners have so far overcome their
prejudices as to take apprentices. Those who have worked it
properly have succeeded; while others complain of the system
being absolutely unsuccessful. My own impression is that the
want of success is not the fault of the lads, but those who
have the controlling of them.

Mr. Ritchie, when he was the head of the Board of Trade,
introduced a system of barter, whereby a certain reduction
of light dues was to be made to the firms who undertook to
train boys for the merchant service and the Royal Naval
Reserve. Needless to say, the very nature of the conditions
caused it to fail. In the first place the parents of the
boys looked upon the proposal as a form of conscription; and
in the second, owners would have no truck with a partial
abatement of the light dues. They very properly claimed that
the charge should be abolished altogether. All other
countries, except America and Turkey, have made the lighting
of their coast-lines an Imperial question; and America only
levies it against British shipping as a retaliatory measure.
Mr. Ritchie lost his chance of doing a national service by
neglecting to take into his confidence shipowners who were
conversant with the voluntary system of training seamen. Had
he done this, it is pretty certain they would have guided
him clear of the difficulties he got into, and his mea