Mr. Williams has accurately and truthfully summed up the seaman’s condition in the United States as follows: “The sailor is degraded to be more effectually robbed; he is cheated for want of official protection; he is not protected because of his own utter helplessness, and because we have no recognized shipping system such as exists in Great Britain, for instance. In this country the sailor is often despised because of his nationality; in European countries he is usually honored for the same reason. When this nation rises to a realizing sense of its own responsibility and manifest duty to the sailor, and provides proper laws for his protection and adequate means for their enforcement, both our merchant marine and navy will become Americanized, seamanship will become an honorable calling, and American boys will go to sea.” Over against this wretched treatment allowed to exist by the government of the United States, for its commissioners make no attempt to prevent it, stands forth the protection accorded the sailors of Great Britain and Germany. Seamen are well taken care of in the latter country; but in Great Britain there exists a system of sailor protection ashore, so perfect as to leave little or nothing to be desired; and the perfection of its detail has led me to show the workings of this scheme in the next few pages, a scheme that is _facile princeps_, and that ought to be a model for the rest of the world. The shipment of seamen in Great Britain is conducted under the superintendence of the Board of Trade; this is a separate department of the government, and upon it devolves the supervision and control of the entire merchant marine,--_i.e._, commerce and navigation. The president of the Board of Trade is a cabinet minister, and of course occupies a seat in Parliament; and the duties of the Board are defined and guided by acts of Parliament. Among other specific functions, the Board of Trade must provide for the shipment, care, and protection of seamen, and must frame and _enforce_ (that’s the great point) proper laws for the suppression of crimping and similar abominations. Inasmuch as the Board was organized solely with reference to the interests of sailors and commerce, its officers have been, in nearly every case, judiciously chosen for their peculiar fitness and natural aptitude for the work rather than for any _political views_ they may have held, or because of any _influence_ exercised in favor of their appointment. As a result of this common-sense arrangement a most efficient and reliable body of officials has been secured, and for this reason the Board of Trade, from being considered at first a very troublesome innovation by maritime people, has succeeded in forming relations so close as to be almost indispensable with ship-owners and merchants throughout Great Britain; and what is even more remarkable, and certainly just as important, it has secured the confidence,