and industrial interests, a new kind of seamanship.  A very new and “progressive” kind.  If you see anything in the way, by no means try to avoid it; smash at it full tilt.  And then—­and then only you shall see the triumph of material, of clever contrivances, of the whole box of engineering tricks in fact, and cover with glory a commercial concern of the most unmitigated sort, a great Trust, and a great ship-building yard, justly famed for the super-excellence of its material and workmanship.  Unsinkable!  See?  I told you she was unsinkable, if only handled in 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.