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greatly-expanded fleet in the event of war. Despite the huge growth in the number of ships in the British merchant service since the RNR's foundation, many of the additional seamen were from the colonies or were not British subjects. The pool of potential RNR officers had shrunk since 1859 and experience in the Boer War showed that it would not be possible to call up a sufficient number of reservists without restricting the work of the merchant and fishing fleets. In 1903 an Act of Parliament was passed enabling

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