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The Seamen’s Recruitment Committee. 
TRANSPORT SERVICES. 
The question of the recruitment; of seamen in India came under the 
consideration of Government and the Indian Legislature in 1921 on the 
adoption by the Second Session of the International Labour Conference 
at Genoa in 1920 of a Draft Convention regarding facilities for finding 
employment for seamen. The Legislature did not recommend ratifica- 
tion of the Convention, but suggested that “an examination should be 
undertaken without delay of the methods of recruitment of seamen at 
the different ports, in order that it may be definitely ascertained whether 
abuses exist and whether those abuses are susceptible of remedy ”. As a 
result, a committee, known as the Seamen’s Recruitment Committee, was 
appointed in 1922. At this time recruitment was conducted in Bombay 
through a single firm of licensed brokers. In Calcutta the principal 
company concerned carried on recruitment through special servants of 
its own and the other companies utilised the services of one of the local 
licensed brokers. The serangs and butlers were selected by the officers 
concerned and the latter were also responsible for approving the crew ; 
but in practice the selection of the crew rested mainly with the serangs 
and butlers. After investigations in Bombay and Calcutta, the Commit- 
tee found that this system had led to grave abuses and were unani- 
mous in recommending an entirely new system which did not involve the 
employment of intermediaries. They recommended the setting up of 
employment bureaux under officers with practical marine experience. 
Method of Recruitment Recommended. 
As regards the method of recruitment, the Committee recom- 
mended that, in the case of the leading ratings (i.e., serangs and butlers), 
the shipping companies should be allowed to nominate anyone who had 
been discharged from a ship of the same line not more than three months 
before, but if they failed to do so, the selection was to be made from a 
fair proportion of men from the top of the roster maintained by the bureau 
for that line. The object of this recommendation was, as stated by the 
Committee, “ to encourage lines to give men, as far as possible, continuity 
of employment and to ensure that each man on the list shall have his 
claims regularly considered ”. So far as seamen were concerned, the 
Committee recognised that in Bombay the crews, especially the deck 
crews, were closely attached to particular serangs, frequently coming 
from the same or neighbouring villages and forming almost a family on 
board. They therefore proposed to interfere with the serangs’ power of 
nomination only in the case of a particular type of crew. In Calcutta, 
on the other hand, they believed that; there was no close attachment 
between the serang and his crew, and proposed a system whereby the 
seamen would be taken by roster from a register maintained for the line 
concerned and from a general register. At the same time shipowners were 
bo be free to take men who had been discharged from ships of the same 
line not more than a month previously. This scheme, had it worked 
satisfactorily, would have tended to encourage continuity of employment 
by giving the shipowners the choice between selecting the crew from