Volume Twelve - Pre-Victorian to the Present Day - further aspects - Mercantile Marine Offices - An article from the Nautical Magazine for 1876. . . .

Of course the above remarks only apply to the offices which exist in Great Britain and Ireland, and they, so far as crews are concerned, apply principally to British ships engaged in the “foreign trade," i.e., that trade which lies beyond the coasts of the United Kingdom, and the coast-line of the Continent of Europe extending from the Elbe to Brest. In foreign ports similar work is performed by the Consuls of Her Majesty at the various Consulates, and also at Custom Houses, &c., in the Colonies by Collectors of Customs and other officials ; but, of course, their operations are in a measure modified by the local law which prevails at each such place.

By the Merchant Shipping Act of 1873, Section 11, power is given to foreign Powers to agree with Her Majesty to extend all the privileges of the British Merchant Shipping Acts, so far as shipping and discharging crews are concerned, to those of the vessels of such States ; but, so far as we have yet learned, this privilege has not yet been availed of Outside of the British “Mercantile Marine Office" limit, there are, of course,“shipping offices" for foreign seamen both in this country and abroad, and in the principal ports of the United States similar ones to ours have been instituted. But we take leave to say that none of the statutes of foreign Powers relating to seamen have the same comprehensiveness and power for good which that of England has if its provisions be only worked and administered in the spirit in which it was framed.

Coming now to the objections which have been raised against Mercantile Marine offices proper, we have only to meet them in the face by showing the mode in which they were introduced. For a fuller detail of it we refer to the Minutes of Evidence and Report of the Royal Commission on Unseaworthy Ships, published 1st July, 1874. At question 18,633, Mr. Farrer (who was an official at the Board of Trade at the time) stated that, previous to the first establishment officially of these offices, crimping had assumed a serious aspect at Liverpool. In order to protect themselves from the "black mail” of these harpies (the crimps) the merchants and shipowners there established a central office at that port - of course, on the voluntary principle. Mr. Farrer and Captain Brown were directed by the Board of Trade to visit Liverpool to see personally how the system worked, and they were advised by the ship owners of that port to recommend the establishment of a national system on the same model ; one of the arguments used being that it would tend to abolish the nefarious crimping practices which so much prevailed.