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

These objections bear a certain amount of plausibility till analysed. If seamen were all of a steady, sober, upright class, this might do. But we are afraid that the depravity of the times has affected many of them so much that some thing like police supervision is absolutely required, even for the good of the men themselves. If the two systems were adopted contemporaneously, on the voluntary principle, wherever the Mercantile Marine offices are worked in the sense in which they were established, viz., to give facilities to the business of the maritime public, then we sincerely believe it would be preferred, and more extensively patronised by the owners and masters themselves. The charges of encouraging insubordination, detention, temptation, and the sailor's carelessness in signing without seeing the vessel, might be almost entirely removed by increased facilities at the offices themselves.

Our idea of a "model" office is that it ought to have the following characteristics :

a. It ought to be centrally situated for shipping, and of sufficient size.

b. If the port be extensive, branches should be established, but not distant offices.

c. It should have a staff adequate to the maximum amount of business done.

d. The chief should have a thorough knowledge of maritime laws, and the value of legal evidence.

e. Where large enough to have an out-door staff, the chief of it should have a police training of a detective character.

f. The staff should be courteous and expert, and the runners should have certain work allotted to them periodically for obvious reasons.

g. The enforcement of the 237th, 243rd, and 257th Sections of the Act of 1854, should be rigidly carried out, for the more complete suppression of desertion, crimping, and disorder.

h. Impartial justice should be meted out to all parties : owners assisted against deserters, and seamen against owners and crimps who oppress or deceive them.