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— though in this lamentable case these bulkheads served only to prolong the agony of the passengers who could not be saved.  But she sank, causing, apart from the sorrow and the pity of the loss of so many lives, a sort of surprised consternation that such a thing should have happened at all.  Why?  You build a 45,000 tons hotel of thin steel plates to secure the patronage of, say, a couple of thousand rich people (for if it had been for the emigrant trade alone, there would have been no such exaggeration of mere size), you decorate it in the style of the Pharaohs or in the Louis Quinze style — I don’t know which — and to please the aforesaid fatuous handful of individuals, who have more money than they know what to do with, and to the applause of two continents, you launch that mass with two thousand people on board at twenty-one knots across the sea — a perfect exhibition of the modern blind trust in mere material and appliances.  And then this happens.  General uproar.  The blind trust in material and appliances has received a terrible shock.  I will say nothing of the credulity which accepts any statement which specialists, technicians and office-people are pleased to make, whether for purposes of gain or glory.  You stand there astonished and hurt in your profoundest sensibilities.  But what else under the circumstances could you expect?
    For my part I could much sooner believe in an unsinkable ship of 3,000 tons than in one of 40,000 tons.  It is one of those things that stand to reason.  You can’t increase the thickness of scantling and plates indefinitely.  And the mere weight of this bigness is an added disadvantage.  In reading the reports, the first reflection which occurs to one is that, if that luckless ship had been a couple of hundred feet shorter, she would have probably gone clear of the danger.  But then, perhaps, she could not have had a swimming bath and a French café.  That, of course, is a serious consideration.  I am well aware that those responsible for her short and fatal existence ask us in desolate accents to believe that if she had hit end on she would have survived.  Which, by a sort of coy implication, seems to mean that it was all the fault of the officer of the watch (he is dead now) for trying to avoid the obstacle.  We shall have presently, in deference to commercial and industrial interests, a new kind of seamanship.  A very new and “progressive” kind.  If you see anything in the way, by no means try to avoid it; smash at it full tilt.  And then — and then only you shall see the triumph of material, of clever contrivances, of the whole box of engineering tricks in fact, and cover with glory a commercial concern of the most unmitigated sort, a great Trust, and a great ship-building yard, justly famed for the super-excellence of its material and workmanship.  Unsinkable!  See?  I told you she was unsinkable, if only handled in accordance with the new seamanship.  Everything’s in that.  And, doubtless, the Board of Trade, if properly approached, would consent to give the needed instructions to its examiners of Masters and Mates.  Behold the examination-room of the future.  Enter to the grizzled examiner a young man of modest aspect: “Are you well up in modern seamanship?”  “I hope so, sir.”  “H’m, let’s see.  You are at night on the bridge in charge of a 150,000 tons ship, with a motor track, organ-loft, etc., etc., with a full cargo of passengers, a full crew of 1,500 café waiters, two sailors and a boy, three collapsible boats as per Board of Trade regulations, and going at your three-quarter speed of, say, about forty knots.  You perceive suddenly right ahead, and close to, something that looks like a large ice-floe.  What would you do?”  “Put the helm amidships.”  “Very well.  Why?”  “In order to hit end on.”  “On what grounds should you endeavour to hit end on?”  “Because we are taught by our builders and masters that the heavier the smash, the smaller the damage, and because the requirements of material should be attended to.”
    And so on and so on.  The new seamanship: when in doubt try to ram fairly — whatever’s before you.  Very simple.  If only the Titanic had rammed that piece of ice (which was not a monstrous berg) fairly, every puffing paragraph would have been vindicated in the eyes of the credulous public which pays.  But would it have been?  Well, I doubt it.  I am