that a British Court of Marine Inquiry, ordinary or extraordinary, is not a contrivance for catching scapegoats.  I, who have been seaman, mate and master for twenty years, holding my certificate under the Board of Trade, may safely say that none of us ever felt in danger of unfair treatment from a Court of Inquiry.  It is a perfectly impartial tribunal which has never punished seamen for the faults of shipowners—­as, indeed, it could not do even if it wanted to.  And there is another thing the angry Premier of New South Wales does not know.  It is this:  that for a ship to float for fifteen minutes after receiving such a blow by a bare stem on her bare side is not so bad.

She took a tremendous list which made the minutes of grace vouchsafed her of not much use for the saving of lives.  But for that neither her owners nor her officers are responsible.  It would have been wonderful if she had not listed with such a hole in her side.  Even the Aquitania with such an opening in her outer hull would be bound to take a list.  I don’t say this with the intention of disparaging this latest “triumph of marine architecture”—­to use the consecrated phrase.  The Aquitania is a magnificent ship.  I believe she would bear her people unscathed through ninety-nine per cent. of all possible accidents of the sea.  But suppose a collision out on the ocean involving damage as extensive as this one was, and suppose then a gale of wind coming on.  Even the Aquitania would not be quite seaworthy, for she would not be manageable.

We have been accustoming ourselves to put our trust in material, technical skill, invention, and scientific contrivances to such an extent that we have come at last to believe that with these things we can overcome the immortal gods themselves.  Hence when a disaster like this happens, there arises, besides the shock to our humane sentiments, a feeling of irritation, such as the hon. gentleman at the head of the New South Wales Government has discharged in a telegraphic flash upon the world.

But it is no use being angry and trying to hang a threat of penal servitude over the heads of the directors of shipping companies.  You can’t get the better of the immortal gods by the mere power of material contrivances.  There will be neither scapegoats in this matter nor yet penal servitude for anyone.  The Directors of the Canadian Pacific Railway Company did not sell “safety at sea” to the people on board the Empress of Ireland.  They never in the slightest degree pretended to do so.  What they did was to sell them a sea-passage, giving very good value for the money.  Nothing more.  As long as men will travel on the water, the sea-gods will take their toll.  They will catch good seamen napping, or confuse their judgment by arts well known to those who go to sea, or overcome them by the sheer brutality of elemental forces.  It seems to me that the resentful sea-gods never do sleep, and are never weary; wherein the seamen who are mere mortals condemned to unending vigilance are no match for them.