gO 
with all respect, that it did not follow because you increased 
the tonnage ofa vessel that you increased her safety as a 
sea-going machine; in fact the life-boat was one of the 
smallest boats which went on the water. One fruitful 
source of loss of life at sea in fisheries was this, that fisher- 
men prided themselves on being a fearless set of people. 
The older he got the more fear he possessed, because he 
believed that with increase of knowledge came increase of 
fear; he could not boast of much knowledge, but he 
had at any rate learnt his own ignorance. Those who 
did not possess a very extensive knowledge generally 
had the least fear. The man who could realise the 
danger by which he was surrounded, who understood 
the force of the elements, and so on, could apprehend 
the dangers contained in them, but one who simply 
took a superficial view of the matter, and possessed all 
the physical courage and power necessary to perform his 
duties, knew nothing about fear. They had been told over 
and over again that life-buoys, life-belts, and all the various 
appliances for insuring safety, were disregarded, and one 
gentleman said that at one time if he had been asked to 
put on a life-jacket or make use of a life-buoy, he would 
have considered it an insult to his courage, but now he had 
got old enough to realise the fact that that was the most 
sensible thing to do to preserve his life, and to recommend 
it to others. He had been in vessels he had the manage- 
ment of, and he had on several occasions given out a full 
set of jackets and buoys, but the difficulties he had met 
with had been those which had been already mentioned, 
that the men treated them with contempt, and when you 
went on board the vessel which had been supplied with 
them, you found them kicking about as if they were of 
no earthly use. A great deal had been said about fleeting, 
