SPIRIT ENDURES

Evening Post, Volume CXXVII, Issue 85, 12 April 1939, Page 10

SPIRIT ENDURES

THE MERCHANT NAVY

ANTI-StJBMARINE MEASURES

HIGH DEVELOPMENT

One of the questions put 'to Mr. W. R. Spence, C.8.E., general secretary of the National Union of Seamen of Great Britain, in an interview, on his arrival by the Wanganella from Sydney today, was whether the reduced tonnage of British mercantile shipping as compared with that available during the Great War was likely to have a serious effect in the event of hostilities.

There were certainly fewer ships, but their individual tonnages were greater, replied Mr. Spence. The question was whether it was wiser to have fewer ships with a big aggregate tonnage or more smaller ships representing about the same tonnage, and he was not in a position to determine that. A point to be remembered was that the liability to submarine attack was greater with more ships, but from what he had been able to gather the British counter-measures against submarines were Very highly developed. He did not think there was anything

like the same concern regarding the submarine menace as existed during the Great War. There was no conscription of men serving in the Mercantile Marine during the Great War, and they were again exempt under the national service registration scheme operating at Home.

They had played their part nobly from 1914 to 1918, and they would do \it again. Their spirit was quite equal to that shown during the Great War. REVOLUTIONARY CHANGES. j Mr. Spence is on a holiday trip in I view of his retirement from office next [ year after ten years' service. He remarked that he had followed Havelock Wilson as general secretary. Since then there had been a vast change in the organisation of the union, and an entirely different policy had been followed, both politically and industrially. The improvements brought about in accommodation and manning of ships and conditions generally could be described as a revolution in the British Mercantile Marine, and had been achieved by agreement and not by conflict. There was ample machinery for dealing with disputes, and while it was sometimes slow it was nevertheless sure. Before he left Home on February 17, Mr. Spence said, he laid the foun-dation-stone of the new £ 100,000 national headquarters qf the union at Clapham. As showing the vastness of the organisation, he mentioned that the assets at the end of 1938 were £411,793, excluding hidden reserves of about £120,000. The : membership of the union was 50,000, and the union was also an approved society under the Health Insurance Act with a membership of 40,000. At one time the membership of seamen themselves was much larger, but the advent of oil and other advances in shipping had reduced the number.

DOMINION MONARCH'S QUARTERS

In addition to being at present a member of the General Council of the British Trades Union Congress, Mr. Spence was a member of the Merchant Shipping Advisory Committee, which was concerned with the question of the crew's quarters on the Dominion Monarch and, as he put it today, ne had a great deal of anxious work in that connection. He had read in Sydney newspapers of the stewards' complaint, and he was able to say definitely that the accommodation provided for the crew of the Dominion Monarch was a great improvement on anything in a ship of similar size now afloat. He could say that after having seen some of the provision made for the stewards under the rules of the British Board of Trade. The general practice under those rules was to provide single-tier bunks. No accommodation was permitted forward in the bows, but must be amidships or aft and above the waterline. There might be exceptions in the case of the big passenger' liners, but the ventilation regulations were so strict that there was very little discomfort.

Mr. Spence will leave Auckland on April 18 for Vancouver en route for England. .