Nelson Evening Mail. TUESDAY, JUNE 11, 1907. FOREIGN NAVAL RESERVISTS. THE LESSON FROM FRANCE.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XLII, Issue XLII, 11 June 1907, Page 2

Nelson Evening Mail. TUESDAY, JUNE 11, 1907. FOREIGN NAVAL RESERVISTS. THE LESSON FROM FRANCE.

THE maritime strike in France, which has just been ended by the Government giving certain concessions in details without sacrificing principles, as the euphemis mof the Minister puts it, was of an unprecedented character. It was a protest by Naval Reservists against alteration in the State pension system, and not an attempt by the employed to raise the rate of wages. The significance of the circumstances attending the strike is that, though practically confined to Naval Reservists, it paralysed the shipping trade of the country, indicating that virtually all the mercantile marine belonged to the fighting roserve. If British Naval Reservists, on the other hand, had struck, and the strike had been confined to them, the shipping of Great Britain would have been affected so inappreciably that even individual urews would have been only somewhat short-handed. The lesson taught is curious. England is the greatest of naval Powers, if we count by the number of its warships and the number of seamen actually in training ; and by far the greatest of maritime Powers, if we judge by the shipping that carries its flag and tho seamen who sail in British ships. But inferior Powers ob-■-iouoly have naval resources which exueed onr own, for they can call to their service a greater number of trainpd naval seamen. Our British Naval Reservists might ■unanimously refuse to work, and the commercial world would hardly know that they had done so. Not a- ship would be laid up ; not a sailing would be postponed.

The fact that is brought home to us is that practically every French sailor may be counted in as available for the French Navy in the event of war. He has 1 already been brained to take his place in the ranks. The same condition applies to the German mercantile marine, to Italians, to Russians, and to Japan. In the British mercantile marine there are thousands of French and German, and other foreign seamen, few of whom have become naturalised British. Many of these men, the Germans especially, belong to their national reserves, and may be called home at very short notice. Similarly, with regard to land reserves, there are thousands of non-naturalised foreigners in London alone, the majority of them enrolled in their countries as reservists. Several fiction writers, notably Max Pomberton and E. Phillips Oppenheim, are already pointing the moral of these conditions, and picture the possibilities of naval reservists taken out of British mercantile vessels at sea by prearrangement on the eve of war, or of a preconcerted rising of, say, German clerks, waiters, and others in London the moment war might happen to be declared.

That which is emphatically brought home to Britons by the great strike of French Naval Reservists, then, is that the only first-class naval Power in Europe without a complete enrolment of Naval Reservists is England ; that of the 40,000 foreign white seamen in the British mercantile marine the vast majority are Naval Reservists owing allegiance to floats other than British. This, says the "New Zealand Herald," in an article on the subject, is a situation upon which no patriotic citizen can look with approval, especially if he realise the hidden meaning of it, A hundred years ago, when Nelson's captains held the seas with their crews of pressed men, naval training did not differ greatly from merchantman training. Every Indiaman had to be ready to fight her way against privateer and pirate ; not a peaceful vessel stood down the channel which did not carry guns and cutlasses as well as men who expected to use them and were taught now. More than this, the English captains had learned that to lie alongside an enemy and to board him with men who did not know when they were beaten was the plain though bloody path to almost certain victory. Bub those days are gone by never to return. The modern merchant sailor has absolutely no idea, of now to use the weapons of to-day, and the smart handling of sails no longer counts in naval duels. Our Twentieth Century stokers would still give a, good account of themselves if a captain could get an enemy within reach of their "slices," but to-day ships fight at five-mile range with highlycomplicated weapons, and under conditions which only specially-trained men can bear.

The raw material of tho Navy is to be found, (no- only on the trajnilig ships, but also, and chiefly, in the mercantile marine. The sailor lives on, and by the sea, and although he has almost lost the arti of going aloft in these days of steam, he is at home upon bossing decks. But unless he be trained and initiated into the methods of seafighting—a long and difficult processor will not be worth shiproom during a battle. The Continental nations have long perceived this, and have made their arrangements accordingly. They require every' sailor and every fisherman to undergo a period of naval training, and then to enrol in the Naval Reserves. In exchange they secure to their own countrymen employment on ships carrying their flag, forbidding the employment of foreigners as long as a Naval BeservisU offers himself. The complete occupation of the French merc.jntile marine by Frenchmen is demonstrated by the results of the naval reservists' strike. But the Navaj Reservist of Britain has no such privileges, even if he have others. He cannot depend on a ship when out 1 of a- job. upheld by the belief cnao nis Naval Ees«rve certificate Will ensure Ins engagement as against foreign competitors as a matter of right. Assuming that he gets a berth, he entars, the forecastle only to find two or three foreigners there to one of his own nationality. The imaginary picture drawn by Max Pemberton of a British merchant steamer stuck up in mid-ocean by a German cruiser, emptied of her foreign, crew, all German Naval Reservists, by prearrangement, and then sent adrift ' as a derelict! is not exaggerated. Neither are Mr E. Phillips Oppenheim's emeute and preceding plot by German residents in London entirely impossible. , The naval effect of this Continental system for the encouragement of naval , training is visible on its, face. If France, or Germany, or Russia/ or Italy be involved in war, the warships can recruit n'herever there is a merchantman, and wherever a sailor is living ashore. The seamen could leave blockaded liners in ports and flock to the warships commissioned to defend coasts or to protect endangered commerce. And wherever there is a foreign sailor under a foreign flag he is equally a fighting man, a trained Naval Reservist, whose allegiance is due to, as his pension is paid by, his own national Government.

In concluding an article on the subject here dealt wj(,h, a Northern •ontemporary says: — "The British Empire has hitherto ignored modern conditions. She has had no great national reserve of trained seamen who in need will keep th« flag flying. She has not cared whether her merchant seamen are British, German, Chinese, or Hindoo. She has been satisfied with owning half the merchant shipping of the world, just as she has with Free Trade, and v the rest of the oentury-old policy that is at last outworn. This cannot go on. Peace is the only thing worth having, but we cannot have neoce unless we are able to guard our own amid nations that are all in training for the inevitable times of trouble. And to guard our own we must not only have the ships and the money, hut have ready at call to man our ships as great a body of Naval Reservists as those whose protest has laid idle every .ship in France."-