expert's attitude of "My dear man, you don't know what you are

talking about."
Now would you believe that the objection put forward was absolutely

futile? I don't know whether the distinguished President of the
Court perceived this. Very likely he did, though I don't suppose

he was ever on terms of familiarity with a ship's bunker. But I
have. I have been inside; and you may take it that what I say of

them is correct. I don't wish to be wearisome to the benevolent
reader, but I want to put his finger, so to speak, on the inanity

of the objection raised by the expert. A bunker is an enclosed
space for holding coals, generally located against the ship's side,

and having an opening, a doorway in fact, into the stokehold. Men
called trimmers go in there, and by means of implements called

slices make the coal run through that opening on to the floor of
the stokehold, where it is within reach of the stokers' (firemen's)

shovels. This being so, you will easily understand that there is
constantly a more or less thick layer of coal generally shaped in a

slope lying in that doorway. And the objection of the expert was:
that because of this obstruction it would be impossible to close

the water-tight door, and therefore that the thing could not be
done. And that objection was inane. A water-tight door in a

bulkhead may be defined as a metal plate which is made to close a
given opening by some mechanical means. And if there were a law of

Medes and Persians that a water-tight door should always slide
downwards and never otherwise, the objection would be to a great

extent valid. But what is there to prevent those doors to be
fitted so as to move upwards, or horizontally, or slantwise? In

which case they would go through the obstructing layer of coal as
easily as a knife goes through butter. Anyone may convince himself

of it by experimenting with a light piece of board and a heap of
stones anywhere along our roads. Probably the joint of such a door

would weep a little--and there is no necessity for its being
hermetically tight--but the object of converting bunkers into

spaces of safety would be attained. You may take my word for it
that this could be done without any great effort of ingenuity. And

that is why I have qualified the expert's objection as inane.
Of course, these doors must not be operated from the bridge because

of the risk of trapping the coal-trimmers inside the bunker; but on
the signal of all other water-tight doors in the ship being closed

(as would be done in case of a collision) they too could be closed
on the order of the engineer of the watch, who would see to the

safety of the trimmers. If the rent in the ship's side were within
the bunker itself, that would become manifest enough without any

signal, and the rush of water into the stokehold could be cut off
directly the doorplate came into its place. Say a minute at the

very outside. Naturally, if the blow of a right-angled collision,
for instance, were heavy enough to smash through the inner bulkhead

of the bunker, why, there would be then nothing to do but for the
stokers and trimmers and everybody in there to clear out of the

stoke-room. But that does not mean that the precaution of having
water-tight doors to the bunkers is useless, superfluous, or

impossible. {7}
And talking of stokeholds, firemen, and trimmers, men whose heavy

labour has not a single redeeming feature; which is unhealthy,
uninspiring, arduous, without the reward of personal pride in it;

sheer, hard, brutalising toil, belonging neither to earth nor sea,
I greet with joy the advent for marine purposes of the internal

combustion engine. The disappearance of the marineboiler will be
a real progress, which anybody in sympathy with his kind must

welcome. Instead of the unthrifty, unruly, nondescript crowd the
boilers require, a crowd of men IN the ship but not OF her, we

shall have comparatively small crews of disciplined, intelligent
workers, able to steer the ship, handle anchors, man boats, and at

the same time competent to take their place at a bench as fitters
and repairers; the resourceful and skilled seamen--mechanics of the

future, the legitimate successors of these seamen--sailors of the
past, who had their own kind of skill, hardihood, and tradition,

and whose last days it has been my lot to share.
One lives and learns and hears very surprising things--things that

one hardly knows how to take, whether seriously or jocularly, how
to meet--with indignation or with contempt? Things said by solemn

experts, by exalted directors, by glorified ticket-sellers, by
officials of all sorts. I suppose that one of the uses of such an

inquiry is to give such people enough rope to hang themselves with.
And I hope that some of them won't neglect to do so. One of them

declared two days ago that there was "nothing to learn from the
catastrophe of the Titanic." That he had been "giving his best

consideration" to certain rules for ten years, and had come to the
conclusion that nothing ever happened at sea, and that rules and

regulations, boats and sailors, were unnecessary; that what was
really wrong with the Titanic was that she carried too many boats.

No; I am not joking. If you don't believe me, pray look back
through the reports and you will find it all there. I don't

recollect the official's name, but it ought to have been Pooh-Bah.
Well, Pooh-Bah said all these things, and when asked whether he

really meant it, intimated his readiness to give the subject more
of "his best consideration"--for another ten years or so

apparently--but he believed, oh yes! he was certain, that had there
been fewer boats there would have been more people saved. Really,

when reading the report of this admirably conducted inquiry one
isn't certain at times whether it is an Admirable Inquiry or a

felicitous OPERA-BOUFFE of the Gilbertian type--with a rather grim
subject, to be sure.

Yes, rather grim--but the comic treatment never fails. My readers
will remember that in the number of THE ENGLISH REVIEW for May,

1912, I quoted the old case of the Arizona, and went on from that
to prophesy the coming of a new seamanship (in a spirit of irony

far removed from fun) at the call of the sublime builders of
unsinkable ships. I thought that, as a small boy of my

acquaintance says, I was "doing a sarcasm," and regarded it as a
rather wild sort of sarcasm at that. Well, I am blessed (excuse

the vulgarism) if a witness has not turned up who seems to have
been inspired by the same thought, and evidently longs in his heart

for the advent of the new seamanship. He is an expert, of course,
and I rather believe he's the same gentleman who did not see his

way to fit water-tight doors to bunkers. With ludicrous
earnestness he assured the Commission of his intensebelief that

had only the Titanic struck end-on she would have come into port
all right. And in the whole tone of his insistent statement there

was suggested the regret that the officer in charge (who is dead
now, and mercifully outside the comic scope of this inquiry) was so

ill-advised as to try to pass clear of the ice. Thus my sarcastic
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 cafe shall remain open all
night. But what about the priceless Sevres 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