THE New Zealand Herald. AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. WEDNESDAY, JUNE 5, 1907. THE FRENCH SEAMEN.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIV, Issue 13456, 5 June 1907, Page 6

THE New Zealand Herald. AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. WEDNESDAY, JUNE 5, 1907. THE FRENCH SEAMEN.

The strike which is for the moment paralysing the mercantile marine of France is of an unprecedented character, being a protest by naval reservists against alteration in the State pension system, and not an attempt by employees to raise the rate of wages. Apart altogether ! from its bearing upon the commerI cial interests of the French nation, which concerns those who are suffering from the temporary suspension of the sea-carrying industry too [ deeply for us to doubt that the Government has ' very considerable

reason for its action, the strike is a

most valuable reminder to the British peoples of the naval methods of rival countries. 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 o

maritime Powers if we judge by the shipping that carries;its flag and the seamen who sail in British ships; but it is a lamentable fact that in-

ferior Powers have naval resources which exceed our own, for they can call to their service a greater number of trained naval seamen. Our Bri-j

tish 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 date would be postponed. From one point of view this is a gratifying

itate of affairs, for nobody who ha

,-the good: -of a country at heart likes to- see commerce harassed or, transit interfered with. But, unfortunately for this point of view, strikes that

lay an embargo upon shipping are not confined to those countries where every seaman is a naval i-eservist. j They are more frequent on British and American coasts than in Continental Europe, and have been among the severe visitations upon our colonial trade. And most .people will

agree that one can endure .more patiently injuries dealt to an unof-

fending public by men who are able and willing to defend their country jin its time of peril than when the I same injuries come from men who are only of special use in the piping times of peace.

What is particularly bi-ought home to us, then, by the great French strike is that every French sailorman can be mustered into the French navy on emergency, and has been already trained to take his place as part of the great fighting machine. What is true of the French sailor is true of the German, the Russian, and the Italian, in Europe, and of the Japanese in Asia. The only great European Power of which the same cannot be said is Britain, which has few reservists in her own mercantile marine who do not owe allegiance to a foreign Government; of these ' foreign naval reservists there are many thousands among the 40,000 foreign white seamen who are sailing under the British flag. This is a situation upon which no patriotic citizen can look with approval, especially if he realises the inner 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 how. More than this, the English captains had learned that to lay 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. But those days are gone by never to return. The modern merchant sailor has absolutely no idea of how 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 highly-com-plicated weapons, and under conditions which only specially-trained men can bear. The merchant sailor is still the raw material of the navyman, for he lives on the sea, and is familiar with the tempestuous elements, but unless he is drilled, trained, and initiated— long and difficult process—he is not worth shiproom on the day of battle. The . Continental nations have long perceived this, and have made their ' arrangements accordingly. They require every sailor and every fisher- ! man 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 reservist offers himself. The complete occupation, of the French mercantile marine by Frenchmen is demonstrated by the results of the naval reservists' strike. '_

v The naval % effect of this Continental system for the encouragement of naval training is visible on its face. If France, is involved in war her warships can recruit wherever there is a French merchantman, and wherever a French sailor is living ashore. Her seamen leave her blockaded liners in her ports and flock to the warships that are commissioned to defend her coasts or to protect endangered commerce. And wherever there is a French 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. The same with Germans, Russians, Italians, Japanese, and the others. The British Empire has hitherto ignored modern conditions. She has had no great national reserve of trained seamen who in need will keep the 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 the rest of the century-old policy that is at last outworn. This cannot go on. Peace is the only thing worth having, but we cannot have peace 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, but. 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. ,