o 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 intense belief 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.
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