In the matter of our Mercantile Marine, I feel sure that we are heaping up for ourselves a most awful mountain of disaster in the way in which we are allowing it to become really a foreign service. One thing we could do, and should do at once--apply the same rule to the Merchant Service that is in force in the Royal Navy. There no alien, unless he has become naturalized, can hold any post whatever. It sounds a small reform; but it would have, I am sure, the most far-reaching effects. At present it is quite possible--indeed, it will be found actually the case in some instances--for a British ship to be wholly manned by foreigners, from the master to the boy--sailing ships, that is. Foreigners in steam are mostly confined to the crew; and, as I have said before, I know of no instance where foreign engineers are employed in our ships at all. Because, in the first place, they, our home-bred engineers, are the best in the world; and, secondly, because they have behind them the support of a great Trade Union, that--although I do not suppose many sea-going engineers are active members of it--would speedily make its voice heard and its influence felt, if any attempt was made to bring in foreign engineers. For reasons which I hope I have made abundantly clear in the preceding pages, such support cannot be found for the seaman--that is, for the foremast hand. But the officers might do much more than they are doing. There are several societies for the mutual help and defence of Mercantile Marine officers, some doing excellent work, others doing scarcely anything at all. I will not particularize, for that would do no good. I will merely say that if all these societies would amalgamate, would all pull together and enlist the sympathy and active support of shipmasters and officers, retired as well, they would be a body extremely powerful in their influence on behalf of the best interests of their profession. Such a body, composed of serious-thinking, well-informed, and trustworthy men in full touch with the subject, could do more in one year for the upraising and nationalizing of the Merchant Service than will ever be done by isolated efforts, however earnest. For their own sakes they would not neglect the foremast hand; in the best interests of the service they could not. Even by the present local efforts of some of these societies much good has been done, enough to show what might be done were they all united.