WE

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E prefer the ignorance of Senator Smith to the knowledge of Mr. Ismay! But let us explain our meaning. When the giant liner Titanic charged at full speed into the fatal iceberg on April 14, she not only shattered herself, but shattered absolutely the sense of security in ocean travel amongst the travelling public. And nowadays the travelling public is practically synonymous with the human race, and every year makes it more SO. Terrible though the disaster was in immediate loss of life, it may be thought even more terrible in its removing of one of the most firmly held beliefs which the world cherished-the safety of ocean travel. Passengers on ocean vessels, especially upon the most modern liners, have taken it for granted that their safety had been given full consideration. They never thought or dreamed that the wonderful luxuries of modern ocean travel were not an additional indication of security. People believed that the Titanic could not sink.

THE BELIEF IN UNSINKABILITY.

This belief in the unsinkability of modern vessels had been growing stronger and stronger for years. As early as 1838 transversal bulkheads were introduced sufficiently to allow of steamers being divided into five sections, any three of which it was believed would suffice to keep the vessel afloat. During the seventy odd years since then everything has been done to strengthen this belief in the minds of the public. The Press articles on the Olympic, the Titanic, and other of the monster liners of to-day all tended in the same direction, and passengers would wait over in order to sail by a larger, newer vessel and have greater security and comfort.

EFFECT ON OFFICERS AND OFFICIALS.

Gradually the idea of the unsinkability of ships grew into an obsession, shared by the public and those who were in charge of the vessels. To a certain extent also the builders and managers became dominated by this obsession, even against their better knowledge and common sense. If captains and presidents of steamship lines believed the ships unsinkable, or only slowly sinkable, is it to be wondered at that everyone else did so? It is not saying too much that the majority of passengers never thought about it sufficiently to see if there was boat accommodation, so completely had all idea of sinking been exorcised. As vessels increased in size and carrying capacity, the boat or other life-saving accommodation made small change. It would almost

seem as if the boats were carried more by force of habit, for miscellaneous uses, but with no concrete idea of use for saving the human freight in case of disaster. The larger the vessel, the less attention seems to have been paid to boat stations or boat drill. There was nothing in the nature of the measures adopted on Japanese liners, where each passenger finds in his cabin the number of his boat and the number of his place in that boat. Naturally nothing of the kind could be done on one of the great British liners, because it would have been a declaration that there were only boats for a third of the whole-besides, the ship "could not sink !"

CONFIDENT EVEN IN DISASTER.

And even when the crash came, when the unseen iceberg had ripped the side out of the leviathan, the unsinkable Titan, last word in shipbuilding art, the obsession remained dominant. Passengers went back to bed, sailors and officers joked, wireless operators did not take it seriously. The captain and the officers even did not at first realise the possibility of sinking, certainly not to the extent of admitting that the vessel could sink before help arrived. Even when they knew they still doubted. The launching of the boats proceeded on no remembered plan, there was no order in embarking the few, just as there were no boats for the many-all was dominated by the obsession, that fatal belief in unsinkability. would seem that even the builders of these modern vessels, who know that they are sinkable, allow their knowledge to be clouded over by the common belief.

IF OWNERS DID KNOW!

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If we do not admit some such an explanation for those responsible, we are confronted by the grim fact that, knowing the public to be deceived, shipowners have continued to build and send to sea ships which they knew would sink-ships they knew did not carry enough emergency boats. If this is so, a heavy responsibility for lost lives lies at the doors of shipowners, builders, and those who frame regulations for such vessels. If, further, knowing that the ships they owned and built could sink, they knew that it was possible to build practically unsinkable ships, those responsible have added a negative crime to a positive one-and, if so, the reckoning will be a heavy one.

A PUBLIC INTERROGATION NOTE..

The obsession has disappeared as completely from the mind of the public as the Titanic has disappeared