Seafaring Labour: The Merchant Marine of Atlantic Canada, 1820–1914 by Eric Sager (review)

REVIEWS 129 introduced. The counter-argument holdsthat the high population loss through diseases unknowingly introduced bytheEuropeans rulesoutany description of earlycontact asbeneficial. Otherpoints needelaboration. Did theIndians,asthe authorcontends, reallycontribute substantially in the seventeenth and eighteenthcenturiesto the formationof a new FrenchCanadian identity intheStLawrence Valley (46 ,56)? If so, others could point out,whydidsofewIndianwords entertheFrench language inQuebec? The references toLouis Rielalsoneedmorecomment. Was Riel'mentally ill'(•86)? It wouldenrichthetextto includea reference tothecontrary position, that which interprets himinthecontext ofmessianic leaders throughout theworld. Thisisagoodbook,onewhich willintroduce manyCanadian educators and theirstudents totheroleof Canada's nativepeoples inthelastfivecenturies of Canada's history. Insteadofthenativepeoples' appearing aspassive victims on whomthe newcomers imposedtheirwill,Milleraccurately presents themas 'active, assertive contributors' (x) to Canada's historical development. It is hoped thata second editionwillbeprepared assoon aspossible toimprove what will be a valued reference work in universities and libraries across Canada. DoN•,t•D B.SMtTHUniversity ofCalgary Seafaring Labour: TheMerchant MarineofAtlantic Canada, z8eo-z9z4. Emc SAGER. Montrealand Kingston:McGill-Queen's UniversityPress•989. Pp. xxvi,32•. $34.95 Theinimitablewordsmith Dr Samuel Johnson, whofigures inthisstudyasa maligner of poorJack,oncecompared a shipunfavourably withajail. Like Johnson, EricSager adopts thecomparative approach, except thathisfocus is ontheshipasafactory. Johnson's allusion belongs totheeighteenth century, when ships wererunbycomradely pirates whoshared anegalitarian world. Even onlatercoastal tradersandfishingvessels, manandmaster wereoften interchangeable and fraternalrelationships predominated. Sager,whose approach reflects thelatetwentieth-century fascination withlabour process andstate intervention, findsthataftertherepeal oftheNavigation Acts inthe mid-nineteenth century, shipboard relations inthemerchant marine deteriorated into an 'endemic conflict' between masters, as ruthless and aloof middle-management agents of merchant capitalists, anddeckhands, aswage labourers tryingto eke out a decentstandard of livingin a crueland exploitative wooden world. Fortunately, Sager's approach ismoresophisticated thanhisapplication of theindustrial conflict model might imply.Heallows fortheunique features of workat seaand the special pressures underwhichseafarers in Atlantic Canada-owned vessels labouredin an increasingly obsolete workplace. His methodological approach to seafaring labouris three-fold: quantitative, 130 THE CANADIAN HISTORICAL REVIEW descriptive, and theoretical. The quantitative analysis growsout of his experience asaresearcher intheAtlantic Canada Shipping Project which was designed totelluswhytheshipping industry ofAtlantic Canada collapsed with thepassing oftheage ofsail. Sager uses familiar Shipping Project datatobuild onhisownworkandthatof hisformercolleagues relatingtoman-tonratios, literacy, desertion, and wages. The contribution that labourmadeto the prolongation ofthedeclining shipping induõtry canbeunderstood interms of smaller and moreexperienced crews,lowerwages, harsherdiscipline, and greater risks. Thedescriptive narrative, comprising atleast halfof thebook,represents an updated seafarers' manual onhowvessels operated andtasks weredistributed, acombination ofHarland's andMyers's textonseamanship andFrankBullen's turn-of-the-century job descriptions of masters, mates,andmen.Whatthe description tells us,overandabove reams ofcommonplace information, isthat shipboard workwasgruelling andcomplex, whilethesocial relations became hierarchical andincreasingly regulated.In additionto the usefultechnical insights, Sagergivesan excellentsummaryof the professionalization of command, asprovidedin theBritishMerchant Shipping acts of •85o, •854, and •869 and the Canadiancertification actof •87o, andof the legislative provisions relating todiscipline andsafety onboardship. The theoretical construct isthatof thetransition fromworkshop tofactory. Sager has tocontend withtheminorinconvenience thatAtlantic Canada's fleet nevermadethetransition to thesteamship factory.Undaunted,he describes howthe craftshop-schooner predatedand then coexisted with the protoindustrial -barque, the formera familymodelof paternaland harmonious working relations, thelatteranincarnation ofindustrialdiscipline. Adherence to this theory results in a comfortablypredictableset-piece.Even the apotheosis of the true industrialworkplacein the form of the elusive ocean-going steamship, withitscarefullysegregated andcontrolled crews, is provided bya snapshot of theBritishmerchant marinein thefinalchapter. This is introducedpresumably to remind us that what did not happenin Atlantic Canadadid nonethelessaffect the workers of the world, a tendentious conclusion tothestudyof anentirelydifferentmerchantmarine. Sager isarealmagpie.Everything hasbeenassembled here.Chapter8, for example, called'Home to the Sea,'is a pot pourri of the dangers, songs, women, sexuality, rituals,andsuperstitions encountered onshipboard. Some ofthechapters derive fromtheworkofhispredecessors inthefield.Chapter 5 on'Recruitment' builds onDavidAlexander's workon'working menwhogot wet,'andchapter 6, 'Struggles for Protection andControl,'adopts thesame dichotomy between legal andextra-legal labour protest andelaborates onthe same examples of withdrawal of labour,asoccurin thisreviewer's studyof sailors' labouring rightsinJack inPort. REVIEWS 131 Whileonehasto admire the single-minded devotionto a construct which brings tolightuseful ways ofperceiving workatsea inthenineteenth century, thestudy isriddied withcontradictions. Forexample, seafaring isportrayed as a craftin decline(222) despitethe professionalization provided by the MerchantShippingacts.The explanation: deckhands weredeniedaccess to knowledge since onlymasters andmates satexaminations forcertification. Yet surely masters andmates learned theirskills asableseamen intherigging as wellasfromstudying navigation inbooks. Even JohnFroude, whoiscitedhere asan authoritymore than three dozentimes,wasno meredeckhand: he became a shipmaster...