BRITISH SEAMEN.

Taranaki Herald, Volume LVIII, Issue 14344, 24 October 1910, Page 3

BRITISH SEAMEN.

THEIR ALLEGED DISAPPEARANCE. By F.lcctrio Tolouraph.—Copyright LONDON, Oct. 22.

Mr. Geoffrey Dragc is president of tho National Conference on Sea Training, convened by tho Navy League, with flic object of preventing the gradual disappearance of British seamen from British ships. A resolution was passed urging training in steam ship navigation for boys of tho elementary schools.

[The idea that British seamen are becoming less numerous is hardly correct at present, ns is shown by the following extract from the Daily Telegraph :—lt is a matter for congratulation that tho dependence of our shipping upon ' foreign seamen continues to lie less marked. In 1905 the “British persons” employed numbered 180,■lO2, ami “foreign persons” 39,171. In 1908, the latest year for which returns are available, the numbers were respectively 190,834 and 34,735. There were 1(5,000 more Britishers, that is to say, and 5000 fewer foreigners. From tho point of view of percentages, tho position is more satisfactory than in any year since 1895. There has, it is true, boon an increase of 700 in tho number of Lascars and other Asiatics employed, comparing 1903 with 1905, but it is quite clear that the foreigner has been in tho main supplanted by the Britisher, and not by the Lascar or the Chinaman. It was tho latter, it was supposed, who was in particular making headway in British ships.]