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boil to think what we’re throwing away. God help us if we ever get ourselves into another mess like the Falklands. We don’t have the resources to do that again.’
    They were silent for a moment, considering the implications of the Captain’s comments, then Sparks remarked, ‘I suppose it all started with the oil crisis in the seventies.’
    â€˜Yes, but you can’t blame the Tory government for that,’ said Rawlings defensively, resuscitating an old ideological war between the two of them.
    â€˜It’s much more complex than that,’ said Mackinnon. ‘It’s partly to do with our loss of an imperial role; partly to do with the ineptitude of British shipowners in trying to carry on in the same old way, like building expensive ships and refusing to change quickly enough.’
    â€˜And perhaps our own refusal to relinquish some of our privileges and change our work practices,’ put in Rawlings. Mackinnon and Sparks exchanged glances. Rawlings, who had swallowed the dogma of monetarist economics to his occasional embarrassment, was the most reactionary person on board the
Matthew Flinders
, increasingly jealous of his status as his chances of command evaporated.
    â€˜Indeed,’ agreed Sparks, raising an eyebrow. ‘But we have been undercut by the subsidised merchant fleets of the Warsaw Pact and displaced by the rise of the national fleets of the Third World.’
    â€˜Oh, they’ve been a bit of a mixed blessing,’ chuckled Rawlings dismissively. ‘Half of them have run into trouble due to graft and corruption.’
    â€˜That may be the case,’ said Mackinnon, ‘but they had the effect of releasing on to the maritime market sources of cheap labour willing to put up with unsafe working practices and dubious ships. The shipowner hasn’t been so spoiled for choice since the Depression.’
    â€˜No wonder the bastards have been rubbing their hands with glee,’ added Sparks, his socialist instincts fully roused. ‘They’ve a limitless source of cheap labour at a time when international legislation is freeing up things so that the registered nationality of a ship is meaningless.’
    â€˜I thought you were all for the international brotherhood of man, Sparky,’ jibed Rawlings.
    â€˜In an ideal world, that would be fine,’ said Mackinnon, backing the Radio Officer and ignoring Rawlings’sfacetiousness, ‘but you ditch a national asset, which not only provides you with the fourth arm of defence, but actually earns you invisibles to set against a balance of payments deficit, at your peril. I know we, as seafarers, have to compete more than any other section of the workforce in a truly international market place, but unless you subsidise a merchant fleet, an advanced country like Britain, irrespective of its geographical identity as an island, isn’t going to have one. Not for defence, not for earning invisibles, not for anything.’
    â€˜I agree, sir,’ said Rawlings with a mixed air of ingratiation and faint exasperation, aware that Mackinnon was ignoring him, ‘but you can’t really blame the shipowner, you know.’ He turned on the Radio Officer. ‘He has to make his profits where he can. If it’s cheaper to register a ship in the Bahamas, or Panama, or Liberia and hire Filipinos because they cost less than a bunch of Scousers—’ He looked at Woo, polishing the glasses as the other officers drifted off to their lunch. ‘I mean Eastern Steam have employed Chinese in the engine-room and as stewards for damn near a century.’
    â€˜But they retained a genuine, philosophic interest in the ships and their employees,’ said Sparks, finishing his drink and siding with the Captain in an unusual display of loyalty to his employers, ‘including their Chinese.’
    â€˜That’s the first time in all the years I’ve known you that I’ve heard you