unreality to their zealous exertions. I think that even in the
United States there is some regret that this zeal of theirs was not

tempered by a large dose of wisdom. It is fitting that people who
rush with such ardour to the work of putting questions to men yet

gasping from a narrow escape should have, I wouldn't say a tincture
of technical information, but enough knowledge of the subject to

direct the trend of their inquiry. The newspapers of two
continents have noted the remarks of the President of the

Senatorial Commission with comments which I will not reproduce
here, having a scant respect for the "organs of public opinion," as

they fondly believe themselves to be. The absolute value of their
remarks was about as great as the value of the investigation they

either mocked at or extolled. To the United States Senate I did
not intend to be disrespectful. I have for that body, of which one

hears mostly in connection with tariffs, as much reverence as the
best of Americans. To manifest more or less would be an

impertinence in a stranger. I have expressed myself with less
reserve on our Board of Trade. That was done under the influence

of warm feelings. We were all feeling warmly on the matter at that
time. But, at any rate, our Board of Trade Inquiry, conducted by

an experienced President, discovered a very interesting fact on the
very second day of its sitting: the fact that the water-tight

doors in the bulkheads of that wonder of naval architecture could
be opened down below by any irresponsible person. Thus the famous

closing apparatus on the bridge, paraded as a device of greater
safety, with its attachments of warning bells, coloured lights, and

all these pretty-pretties, was, in the case of this ship, little
better than a technical farce.

It is amusing, if anything connected with this stupid catastrophe
can be amusing, to see the secretly crestfallen attitude of

technicians. They are the high priests of the modern cult of
perfected material and of mechanical appliances, and would fain

forbid the profane from inquiring into its mysteries. We are the
masters of progress, they say, and you should remain respectfully

silent. And they take refuge behind their mathematics. I have the
greatest regard for mathematics as an exercise of mind. It is the

only manner of thinking which approaches the Divine. But mere
calculations, of which these men make so much, when unassisted by

imagination and when they have gained mastery over common sense,
are the most deceptive exercises of intellect. Two and two are

four, and two are six. That is immutable; you may trust your soul
to that; but you must be certain first of your quantities. I know

how the strength of materials can be calculated away, and also the
evidence of one's senses. For it is by some sort of calculation

involving weights and levels that the technicians responsible for
the Titanic persuaded themselves that a ship NOT DIVIDED by water-

tight compartments could be "unsinkable." Because, you know, she
was not divided. You and I, and our little boys, when we want to

divide, say, a box, take care to procure a piece of wood which will
reach from the bottom to the lid. We know that if it does not

reach all the way up, the box will not be divided into two
compartments. It will be only partly divided. The Titanic was

only partly divided. She was just sufficiently divided to drown
some poor devils like rats in a trap. It is probable that they

would have perished in any case, but it is a particularly horrible
fate to die boxed up like this. Yes, she was sufficiently divided

for that, but not sufficiently divided to prevent the water flowing
over.

Therefore to a plain man who knows something of mathematics but is
not bemused by calculations, she was, from the point of view of

"unsinkability," not divided at all. What would you say of people
who would boast of a fireproof building, an hotel, for instance,

saying, "Oh, we have it divided by fireproof bulkheads which would
localise any outbreak," and if you were to discover on closer

inspection that these bulkheads closed no more than two-thirds of
the openings they were meant to close, leaving above an open space

through which draught, smoke, and fire could rush from one end of
the building to the other? And, furthermore, that those

partitions, being too high to climb over, the people confined in
each menaced compartment had to stay there and become asphyxiated

or roasted, because no exits to the outside, say to the roof, had
been provided! What would you think of the intelligence or candour

of these advertising people? What would you think of them? And
yet, apart from the obvious difference in the action of fire and

water, the cases are essentially the same.
It would strike you and me and our little boys (who are not

engineers yet) that to approach--I won't say attain--somewhere near
absolute safety, the divisions to keep out water should extend from

the bottom right up to the uppermost deck of THE HULL. I repeat,
the HULL, because there are above the hull the decks of the

superstructures of which we need not take account. And further, as
a provision of the commonest humanity, that each of these

compartments should have a perfectly independent and free access to
that uppermost deck: that is, into the open. Nothing less will

do. Division by bulkheads that really divide, and free access to
the deck from every water-tight compartment. Then the responsible

man in the moment of danger and in the exercise of his judgment
could close all the doors of these water-tight bulkheads by

whatever clever contrivance has been invented for the purpose,
without a qualm at the awful thought that he may be shutting up

some of his fellow creatures in a death-trap; that he may be
sacrificing the lives of men who, down there, are sticking to the

posts of duty as the engine-room staffs of the Merchant Service
have never failed to do. I know very well that the engineers of a

ship in a moment of emergency are not quaking for their lives, but,
as far as I have known them, attend calmly to their duty. We all

must die; but, hang it all, a man ought to be given a chance, if
not for his life, then at least to die decently. It's bad enough

to have to stick down there when something disastrous is going on
and any moment may be your last; but to be drowned shut up under

deck is too bad. Some men of the Titanic died like that, it is to
be feared. Compartmented, so to speak. Just think what it means!

Nothing can approach the horror of that fate except being buried
alive in a cave, or in a mine, or in your family vault.

So, once more: continuous bulkheads--a clear way of escape to the
deck out of each water-tight compartment. Nothing less. And if

specialists, the precious specialists of the sort that builds
"unsinkable ships," tell you that it cannot be done, don't you

believe them. It can be done, and they are quite clever enough to
do it too. The objections they will raise, however disguised in

the solemnmystery of technical phrases, will not be technical, but
commercial. I assure you that there is not much mystery about a

ship of that sort. She is a tank. She is a tank ribbed, joisted,
stayed, but she is no greater mystery than a tank. The Titanic was

a tank eight hundred feet long, fitted as an hotel, with corridors,
bed-rooms, halls, and so on (not a very mysterious arrangement

truly), and for the hazards of her existence I should think about
as strong as a Huntley and Palmer biscuit-tin. I make this

comparison because Huntley and Palmer biscuit-tins, being almost a
national institution, are probably known to all my readers. Well,

about that strong, and perhaps not quite so strong. Just look at
the side of such a tin, and then think of a 50,000 ton ship, and

try to imagine what the thickness of her plates should be to
approach anywhere the relative solidity of that biscuit-tin. In my

varied and adventurouscareer I have been thrilled by the sight of
a Huntley and Palmer biscuit-tin kicked by a mule sky-high, as the

saying is. It came back to earth smiling, with only a sort of
dimple on one of its cheeks. A proportionately severe blow would

have burst the side of the Titanic or any other "triumph of modern
naval architecture" like brown paper--I am willing to bet.

I am not saying this by way of disparagement. There is reason in
things. You can't make a 50,000 ton ship as strong as a Huntley

and Palmer biscuit-tin. But there is also reason in the way one
accepts facts, and I refuse to be awed by the size of a tank bigger

than any other tank that ever went afloat to its doom. The people
responsible for her, though disconcerted in their hearts by the

exposure of that disaster, are giving themselves airs of
superiority--priests of an Oracle which has failed, but still must