I am quite sure that British seamen are to be got and kept, if the powers that be will only go the right way to work, remembering that what is wanted is not so much fresh legislation as a little more use of the legislation already existing. Ship-owners are not anxious to carry foreign seamen, except, perhaps, in eastern trades, where lascars and Chinese come in handy. And even in those ships there will usually be found a stiffening of most excellent white seamen, who are usually British. No; the only question for the average ship-owner is, "How, in the face of the fierce and unscrupulous competition against which I have to fight, can I get my ships efficiently manned?" He wants men to earn their pay, pay which is higher than that of any other country, except America and Australia, and he does not at all concern himself about the nationality of those men. He leaves them, very properly, to those who will have to command them; but if masters of ships are made to believe that, no matter how good the pay and provisions given, they can never rely upon getting, in the first place, sailor-men of their own race at all, and, in the second, men of their own nationality who will work cheerfully for their pay without a constant succession of worrying rows, it must not be wondered at if they prefer the foreigner, who comes already broken in, trained in seamanship, polite, and hard-working, no matter where he hails from. In bidding farewell to the A.B., I again earnestly express my full sympathy for and with him, and trust that ere long I shall have the joy of seeing A.B.'s of my own race again increasing in the British Merchant Service. CHAPTER XXXI. THE O.S. (ORDINARY SEAMAN). In the days when the A.B. was properly considered to be a man who had learned his trade, and would have been ashamed to ship as an A.B. unless he were fully capable of doing any job of sailorizing that was given him, the O.S. was quite an institution. He was a young seaman who had been through a time of considerable tribulation as a ship-boy; but, having grown bigger and stronger, able to take his trick at the wheel, and make himself felt in furling sails, he ventured to take a step up the ladder. There was no specified manner in which this was to be done. With that haphazard disregard of the seamen's best interests which has characterized our Mercantile Marine for many generations, it was left to chance. One would have thought that a recognized method would have been for a boy to present himself before certain properly constituted authorities for an examination into his qualifications, and that, having satisfied them that he was able to do all that an ordinary seaman should be capable of, they would grant him a certificate to that effect.