The Evening Star THURSDAY, OCTOBER 13, 1932. SHIPS’ OFFICERS.

Evening Star, Issue 21232, 13 October 1932, Page 8

The Evening Star THURSDAY, OCTOBER 13, 1932. SHIPS’ OFFICERS.

The recording of a “ man overboard incident during the outward voyage of the Port Gisborne, which reached Auckland yesterday from London, has been the means of disclosing that included in the crew are eighteen young men holding second mates’ certificates who have shipped before the mast because of the great over-supply of officers. It was Mr Lloyd George who described the merchant service as the jugular vein of the British Empire. Its captains, officers, and engineers may truthfully be termed the pivotal men of the industry. The industry, however, has fallen on lean times. During the war and for some years afterwards shipping boomed, and some really inordinate profits were made. Reference to the London Stock Exchange Year Book reveals, for example, that the Orient Steam Navigation Company paid dividends of 55 per cent, during each of the years 1911-15, 5 per cent, and bonuses of 20 and 50 per cent, to preferred and deferred shareholders respectively in 1916, and 15 per cent, free of tax in each of the four years to 1920, in which year a watering took place in the form of a bonus of 100 per cent, in deferred shares, and oh the increased capital 124 per cent, dividends were paid free of tax in each of the next four years. These figures are only typical of the . returns of many other shipping concerns, large and small big dividends on enormously watered stock and the accumulation of vast reserves. The boom has been succeeded by a slump of unusually long continuance, and the wisdom of boards of directors in conserving their resources lias been vindicated. The possession of reserves is enabling many companies to carry on until in the course of the trade cycle a revival begins. A champion of those in the seagoing employ of those companies has arisen who says: “Unfortunately, and to their shame, it must be said that, with few exceptions, the directors allow their captains and officers little opportunity to build up corresponding reserves to tide them over their bad times.” As long ago as the end of 1925 Captain William Coombs, F.R.G.S., published a book entitled 1 The Nation’s Key Mon,’ which conveys some idea of the hardships and unemployment which even then had overtaken mercantile marine officers. Nearly seven years have passed, and if there has been any change in the position it certainly is not one for the better. After retiring from the sea Captain Coombs held a lucrative shore position at Shanghai, bub in 1920 he relinquished it to return to England, since when he has worked indefatigably in the interests of the mercantile marine officer and engineer. Ho insists that the British public should interest itself in the merchant'service, its greatest possession, quoting a shipowning politician ns saying that “ in peace or war, without merchant service officers, the nation could not move hand or foot.” Of the men who took the food ships of Britain across the seven seas and brought them back through the most bloody naval blockade in history, 2,824 officers lost their lives at sea*by enemy action, serving as civilians under the Red Ensign and not the White. The debt was acknowledged at the time by tbe Press, the pulpit, the politician, tbe public, and the shipowners. “ But,” comments Captain

I Coombs, ‘‘ had the spirit of the shipowners been as patriotic as their words, tho terrible and wicked distress that hundreds of splendid, efficient, and loyal officers have endured during the last I four years • could surely have been 1 avoided, or at any rate very consider* 1 ably mitigated. . . . The conditions in the profession (with a few notable exceptions under firms to whom all honour is due) at tho present time are such as no man on shore, whatever liis training and status, would willingly tolerate; in fact, even to the long-suf-fering merchant captains and officers theso things ore becoming almost intolerable. Unemployment among liter- ' ally thousands of captains and officers 1 has been rife since the boom period. Splendid officers, with invaluable experience and wonderful war records, have had to struggle on as best they can. . . In almost every British merchant ship the officers will be found to be disconsolate men, unhappy men, and in some cases bitter men, men who are driven almost to despair by tho helplessness of their own position.” Again we emphasise that this was written seven years ago, when Captain Coombs admitted ” the present abnormal and prolonged depression in world trade” was a factor. But an even stronger factor, he claimed, was “ the good business methods” of the shipowner, who has always been shrewd enough to take care that the supply has always exceeded the demand so far as merchant officers are concerned. “To my certain knowledge,” writes Captain Coombs, “ hundreds of welltrained, promising young officers have left the merchant service in the last few years, disgusted with conditions and prospects.” Briefly the conditions are that the monetary reward is not munificent, that their leave is inadequate, that their accommodation is frequently unsuitable (as, for example, in a typical tramp steamer in the tropics), and that their future is in most cases unassured. Captain Coombs criticises shipowners, not as individuals, but as a heartless machine. He concedes that the directors and those largely responsible for the unsatisfactory conditions in the service are probably quite ordinary, reasonable men, deeply immersed in the complex affairs of the running of a huge business, too busy to interest themselves in the conditions and wellbeing of the officers who run their ships for their profit. He admits that the British shipowner meets unfair foreign competition, in that foreign ships can freely trade on British coasts, whereas, with few exceptions, British ships cannot trade on the coasts of foreign countries. Captain Coombs recounts the fury of an officer in a large passenger company on returning to London from the East to find his monthly salary reduced by £1 10s to £l6 10s. The reduction threw the whole economy of his household out of gear, and it was with difficulty that Captain Coombs dissuaded him from the idea of organising a strike, the clinching argument being'the opportune ushering in of a commander, R.N.R., holding tho D.S.C., who had been unemployed for two years and whose furniture was being sold stick by .stick. The newcomer was asked his attitude if the officers of tho line concerned went on strike. He replied that he would be at that company’s office as fast as his legs could carry him, asking for a chief, second, third, fourth, or even fifth officer’s job, and further he would tell a hundred men in London, hungry like himself, that there were vacancies waiting for them. Masters and officers are not in a position to strike, neither does the strike weapon appeal to them as loyalists and Imperialists. But is t there nothing else to do but await a world trade revival before conditions at sea can be improved or employment can be found for men who have chosen the sea as a profession? As a body, shipowners skimmed the war profits off very cleanly and left the country’s shipping industry to contend with very greatly increased interest charges to bear, and left the nation’s keymen to face the slender years as best they could. And what of the enormous number of seagong men not of officers’ rank?