The Progress of the World. 



607 



this the case that one of the cleverest 

 and most popular agitators on the Front 

 Opposition bench is said to have privately 

 confessed that no party capital is to be got 

 out of opposing Home Rule ; he means to 

 pursue a more profitable line of attack. 



The old bogey is dead, 



Will the and all the lurid rhetoric 



Peers be Wise ? „f Sir Edward Carson will 



not avail to resuscitate it. 

 According to the Parliament Act, the 

 Home Rule Bill can be carried into law 

 over the licails of the Peers in two years' 

 time. But is there not a possibility of the 

 15111 becoming an Act even this year ? The 

 Peers are for the most part Englishmen 

 who have a traditional reverence for facts. 

 They are, and feel themselves to be, repre- 

 sentative of the vis inerticc in British 

 politics. They suppose themselves to 

 possess a strange telepathic consciousness 

 of the inert mass of British o])inion. Is it 

 too much to expect that they have thus 



become aware of the altered mood of the 

 British people toward Home Rule : The 

 Lords have not been impervious to the 

 ridicule that visited the performances of the 

 " die-hard " troupe. If they could pass the 

 National Insurance Bill, with all its new 

 and unconsidered perplexities, out of defer- 

 ence to the manifest will of the nation, how 

 much more might they, as reasonable 

 statesmen, consent to enact a principle 

 which has been before the minds of the 

 people of this country for well-nigh a 

 generation, and which has behind it a 

 majority of over a hundred in the Lower 

 House? It has been the boast of the Peers 

 that they are the mouthpiece of the settled 

 conservative instincts of the British people. 

 As these are manifestly setting in the 

 direction of Home Rule, would not the 

 Peers be wise to ciiange accordingly ? 

 Their history, as well as their devotion to 

 the memory of the author of the phrase, 

 is scarcely needed to remind them that 

 " consistency is the last resort of a fool." 



"PROGRESS" 



1912. 



IN SAFETY 



UNDER Till 

 1906. 



BOARD 



OF TRADE. 



1858. 



WAriN lift I 



'■^■?i"^"^- }''"^'?-^^'^'r^'i^Jil 



OOuBlE DKh 



iinu 



OO»/0lf irtfiL 



This shows that, under the Board of Trade, from 1858 to 1912 the margin of safety has moved progressively 

 backwards against the passenger's right to a chance of life. 



The "Titanic"— Built 1912. The " Maurktama"—1Juii.t 1906. 



the section shows how the conslriiclinn of The section shows liow thi; ,I/.;«r,/,»H/<j 



the Titanic left hct side ficlow w.iicr-liiic is prolcclcil below the waicr-linc by 



comparatively unprotected, having no coal lar(;e masses of coal in bunkers on 



bunkers at sides. iKitli sides .ind at the forward cml. 



This was done owing to the insistence 

 of 'the Admiralty authoritiet,. 



The "Gri:at Eastern"— Boilt 185S. 

 The secliim showshow the Great Easltrn 

 was protected not only on the bottom 

 but up the sides to well above the water- 

 line. 



