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
cafe 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 well
aware that in the eighties the steamship Arizona, one of the "greyhounds
of the ocean" in the jargon of that day, did run bows on against a very
unmistakable iceberg, and managed to get into port on her collision
bulkhead. But the _Arizona_ was not, if I remember rightly, 5,000 tons
register, let alone 45,000, and she was not going at twenty knots per
hour. I can't be perfectly certain at this distance of time, but her sea-
speed could not have been more than fourteen at the outside. Both these
facts made for safety. And, even if she had been engined to go twenty
knots, there would not have been behind that speed the enormous mass, so
difficult to check in its impetus, the terrific weight of which is bound
to do damage to itself or others at the slightest contact.

I assure you it is not for the vain pleasure of talking about my own poor
experiences, but only to illustrate my point, that I will relate here a
very unsensational little incident I witnessed now