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Notes on Life and Letters-Part33_JOSEPH CONRAD (1857-1924)_English Literature(文学名著)-第2页

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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, men and women (unless considered from a purely



commercial point of view) are not exactly the cattle of the

Western-ocean trade, that used some twenty years ago to be thrown



overboard on an emergency and left to swim round and round before

they sank. If you can't get more boats, then sell less tickets.



Don't drown so many people on the finest, calmest night that was

ever known in the North Atlantic--even if you have provided them



with a little music to get drowned by. Sell less tickets! That's

the solution of the problem, your Mercantile Highness.



But there would be a cry, "Oh! This requires consideration!" (Ten

years of it--eh?) Well, no! This does not require consideration.



This is the very first thing to do. At once. Limit the number of

people by the boats you can handle. That's honesty. And then you



may go on fumbling for years about these precious davits which are

such a stumbling-block to your humanity. These fascinating patent



davits. These davits that refuse to do three times as much work as

they were meant to do. Oh! The wickedness of these davits!



One of the great discoveries of this admirable Inquiry is the

fascination of the davits. All these people positively can't get






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