It was not until October last that a contributory pension scheme for Merchant Naval officers was agreed upon by representatives of the shipowners' and various officers' associations. Previously, superannuation schemes existed only in those cor-panies who regarded their personnel more or less as permanent employces. There still exists no hard-and-fast pension scheme for merchant seamen, except in so far as they Thay be operated privately by the firms employing them or unemployed or aged seamen are entitled to the same Benetis as other members of the shore-going population, states "Tatrat" in the "Observer."
Established in 1865, the Royal Alfred Aged Merchant Seamen's Institution provides a home, or the help necessary to support themselves in their own homes. to British men and women who have given all or the greater part of their working lives to service in the Merchant Navy. It has a benevolent fund for seamen's widows, and a Samaritan fund, It maintains 105 old seamen in Us Home at Belvedere, Kent; forty-two residents in its home for infirm seamen nearby, and grants out-relief or pensions to nearly 1,600 beneficiaries in more than 400 di tricts all over the United Kingdom. The proportion of beneficiaries who have served as officers is roughly one in five, while apart from widows a few exstewardesses are very properly included among the "old sailors."
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.