common stock of seamen, on which both can draw.
But this theory, like many others equally obvious
and tempting, has the disadvantage that it leaves
important factors out of account and, if worked
out, results in an absurdity. Thus, shortly before
war began there were in the country some 420,000
seamen, of whom one-third were in the Navy and
two-thirds engaged in merchant ships and fishing
vessels. There was no considerable body of
unemployed seamen. During the war the personnel of
the Navy was expanded to something like the
420,000 which represents the common stock of
seamen. Therefore, if the theory met the case,
there would have been no men left for the Merchant
Service. But the merchant ships, in spite of
difficulty and danger, continued to run, employing
great numbers of men. And we must not forget to
take into account the number of men, amounting to
48,000 killed and 4500 prisoners of war, who have
been lost in the two services during the war. So
it comes to this, that the common stock of seamen,
or at least of men fit to man ships, has expanded
during the war by more than 50 per cent. Whence
came these extra men? Clearly for the most part
from the non-seafaring classes.

"The Navy in November, 1918, employed some 80,000
officers and men from the Merchant Service--viz.
20,000 R.N.R. ratings, 36,000 Trawler Reserve, and
20,000 mercantile seamen and firemen on Transport
agreements, plus the officers. If the supposition,
made in the absence of statistics, is correct
that at this time the number of men in the
Merchant Service itself had decreased
proportionately to the loss of tonnage, it would
seem that the Merchant Service needed no
considerable inflow of men during the war. In
other words, most of those added to the stock of
seamen during the war must have gone into the
Navy. This corresponds with known fact: the Navy
has, in addition to the Reserve men already
mentioned, nearly 200,000 men to demobilise in
order to put its personnel on the footing on which
it stood when war broke out.