Complete Works

prophecy, that such a suggestion was sure to turn up, receives an unexpected fulfilment.  You will see yet that in deference to the demands of “progress” the theory of the new seamanship will become established: “Whatever you see in front of you — ram it fair. . .”  The new seamanship!  Looks simple, doesn’t it?  But it will be a very exact art indeed.  The proper handling of an unsinkable ship, you see, will demand that she should be made to hit the iceberg very accurately with her nose, because should you perchance scrape the bluff of the bow instead, she may, without ceasing to be as unsinkable as before, find her way to the bottom.  I congratulate the future Transatlantic passengers on the new and vigorous sensations in store for them.  They shall go bounding across from iceberg to iceberg at twenty-five knots with precision and safety, and a “cheerful bumpy sound” — as the immortal poem has it.  It will be a teeth-loosening, exhilarating experience.  The decorations will be Louis-Quinze, of course, and the café shall remain open all night.  But what about the priceless Sèvres porcelain and the Venetian glass provided for the service of Transatlantic passengers?  Well, I am afraid all that will have to be replaced by silver goblets and plates.  Nasty, common, cheap silver.  But those who will go to sea must be prepared to put up with a certain amount of hardship.
    And there shall be no boats.  Why should there be no boats?  Because Pooh-Bah has said that the fewer the boats, the more people can be saved; and therefore with no boats at all, no one need be lost.  But even if there was a flaw in this argument, pray look at the other advantages the absence of boats gives you.  There can’t be the annoyance of having to go into them in the middle of the night, and the unpleasantness, after saving your life by the skin of your teeth, of being hauled over the coals by irreproachable members of the Bar with hints that you are no better than a cowardly scoundrel and your wife a heartless monster.  Less Boats.  No boats!  Great should be the gratitude of passage-selling Combines to Pooh-Bah; and they ought to cherish his memory when he dies.  But no fear of that.  His kind never dies.  All you have to do, O Combine, is to knock at the door of the Marine Department, look in, and beckon to the first man you see.  That will be he, very much at your service — prepared to affirm after “ten years of my best consideration” and a bundle of statistics in hand, that: “There’s no lesson to be learned, and that there is nothing to be done!”
    On an earlier day there was another witness before the Court of Inquiry.  A mighty official of the White Star Line.  The impression of his testimony which the Report gave is of an almost scornful impatience with all this fuss and pother.  Boats!  Of course we have crowded our decks with them in answer to this ignorant clamour.  Mere lumber!  How can we handle so many boats with our davits?  Your people don’t know the conditions of the problem.  We have given these matters our best consideration, and we have done what we thought reasonable.  We have done more than our duty.  We are wise, and good, and impeccable.  And whoever says otherwise is either ignorant or wicked.
    This is the gist of these scornful answers which disclose the psychology of commercial undertakings.  It is the same psychology which fifty or so years ago, before Samuel Plimsoll uplifted his voice, sent overloaded ships to sea.  “Why shouldn’t we cram in as much cargo as our ships will hold?  Look how few, how very few of them get lost, after all.”
    Men don’t change.  Not very much.  And the only answer to be given to this manager who came out, impatient and indignant, from behind the plate-glass windows of his shop to be discovered by this inquiry, and to tell us that he, they, the whole three million (or thirty million, for all I know) capital Organisation for selling passages has considered the problem of boats — the only answer to give him is: that this is not a problem of boats at all.  It is the problem of decent behaviour.  If you can’t carry or handle so many boats, then don’t cram quite so many people on board.  It is as simple as that — this problem of right feeling and right conduct, the real nature of which seems beyond the comprehension of ticket-providers.  Don’t sell so many tickets, my virtuous dignitary.  After all,