§ SIR CHARLES DILKE (Gloucestershire, Forest of Dean)To ask the President of the Board of Trade whether, is view of the supply of boys willing to 272 go to sea if effective means for their doing so can be provided, he will state what steps he proposes to take to give effect to the eleventh recommendation of the Board of Trade Committee to the effect that every encouragement should be given to training ships and to the training of boys on merchant vessels with the object of increasing the number of British seamen in the mercantile marine; what will be the total number of boy sailors carried under the reduced lights dues clause of the Merchant Shipping Mercantile Marine Fund Act of 1898, as compared with the number, 16,150, mentioned by the Member for Croydon as the number of boys which would be carried if his proposal were accepted.
(Answered by Mr. Gerald Balfour.) The Board of Trade have commended to the consideration of the principal associations representing British shipowners the recommendation of the Mercantile Marine Committee referred to, and with the co-operation of the other Departments of the Government interested in educational matters in the United Kingdom they have arranged for the circulation of a Memorandum inviting local educational authorities to give their assistance and encouragement to training ships. The number of boy sailors enrolled as probationers in the Royal Naval Reserve up to the end of last month is 3,217. A steady increase in the annual numbers is shown, and is especially noticeable in the figures for last year. If the same rate of progression is maintained, some 4,000 or 5,000 boys will have been enrolled by the 31st March, 1905, when the section of the Merchant Shipping (Mercantile Marine Fund) Act, under which the scheme was established, ceases to be in force. The number mentioned by my right hon. friend the Member for Croydon was the possible maximum.