of public opinion,” as they fondly believe themselves to be.  The absolute value of their remarks was about as great as the value of the investigation they either mocked at or extolled.  To the United States Senate I did not intend to be disrespectful.  I have for that body, of which one hears mostly in connection with tariffs, as much reverence as the best of Americans.  To manifest more or less would be an impertinence in a stranger.  I have expressed myself with less reserve on our Board of Trade.  That was done under the influence of warm feelings.  We were all feeling warmly on the matter at that time.  But, at any rate, our Board of Trade Inquiry, conducted by an experienced President, discovered a very interesting fact on the very second day of its sitting:  the fact that the water-tight doors in the bulkheads of that wonder of naval architecture could be opened down below by any irresponsible person.  Thus the famous closing apparatus on the bridge, paraded as a device of greater safety, with its attachments of warning bells, coloured lights, and all these pretty-pretties, was, in the case of this ship, little better than a technical farce.

It is amusing, if anything connected with this stupid catastrophe can be amusing, to see the secretly crestfallen attitude of technicians.  They are the high priests of the modern cult of perfected material and of mechanical appliances, and would fain forbid the profane from inquiring into its mysteries.  We are the masters of progress, they say, and you should remain respectfully silent.  And they take refuge behind their mathematics.  I have the greatest regard for mathematics as an exercise of mind.  It is the only manner of thinking which approaches the Divine.  But mere calculations, of which these men make so much, when unassisted by imagination and when they have gained mastery over common sense, are the most deceptive exercises of intellect.  Two and two are four, and two are six.  That is immutable; you may trust your soul to that; but you must be certain first of your quantities.  I know how the strength of materials can be calculated away, and also the evidence of one’s senses.  For it is by some sort of calculation involving weights and levels that the technicians responsible for the Titanic persuaded themselves that a ship not divided by water-tight compartments could be “unsinkable.”  Because, you know, she was not divided.  You and I, and our little boys, when we want to divide, say, a box, take care to procure a piece of wood which will reach from the bottom to the lid.  We know that if it does not reach all the way up, the box will not be divided into two compartments.  It will be only partly divided.  The Titanic was only partly divided.  She was just sufficiently divided to drown some poor devils like rats in a trap.  It is probable that they would have perished in any case, but it is a particularly horrible fate to die boxed up like this.  Yes, she was sufficiently divided for that, but not sufficiently divided to prevent the water flowing over.