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The Keview ojh Review^ 



THE "TITANIC- DISASTER. 



In tlic Fortnightly Reviewi Mr. Thomas Hardy contri- 

 butes lines on the loss of the Titanic, under the title of 

 " The Convergence of the Twain." We select three of 

 the eleven stanzas : — 



Well ! while was fashioning 

 This sliip of swiftest wing, 

 The Immanent Will that stirs and urges everything, 



Prepared a sinister Mate 



For her — so gaily great — 



A .Shape of Ice, for the time far and dissociate. 



Till the Spinner of the Years 

 Said "Now I " The which each hears, 

 And consummation comes, and jars two hemispheres. 



"Someone Ought to H.\ng." 



In a strongly written article the editor of the 

 Nautical Magazine arraigns the Board of Trade's 

 Marine Department : — 



The Marine Department of the Board of Trade has been 

 brought to the bar of public opinion in regard to this late 

 terrible disaster. Unless public opinion keeps the matter in 

 view and continues to agitate, only half measures will, as in past 

 times, be adopted, and this irresponsible Government Depart- 

 ment will go to sleep again. There is the crux! Who is 

 responsible? Can responsibility be brought home to anyone? 

 And yet someone ought to hang. This is none too strong 

 language. No one will be hanged, no one, we presume, will 

 lose his position ; but at least let us have reform. It is time 

 this farce was ended, and that a Board of Trade really existed. 



The Board of Trade has no excuse. In 1894, ^"d again in 

 1906, that body obtained from Parliament additions and 

 revisions of the Merchant Shipping Act, etc. 



Now, in 1906, the Marine Department had every opportunity 

 to revise, or add to, the rules made eighteen years previously, 

 but the only things done were to apply these rules to foreign 

 ships in certain cases, and to compel an entry to be made in a 

 ship's official log when boat drill is practised or the life-saving 

 appliances examined ; but there was no compulsion to have any 

 drill or examination at all ; everything was, practically, left as 

 in 1S88. 



A SERIOUS INDICTMENT. 



Passenger steamers are surveyed by an engineer 

 .surveyor, even to such things as boats, compasses, etc. 

 Emigrant ships are surveyed by a seaman, but there 

 exist no definite orders thtit he shall .see any boats 

 lowered, and " we are informed that in many cases no 

 boat is lowered, and that one well-known steamship 

 line is excused from any ollicial boat drill at all." Also 

 " the chief provisions of the Emigration Act are more 

 than sixty years old." '• As to manning these huge 

 vessels, we find that the emigration officer is ordered 

 to proceed on a basis of the minimum cubic contents 

 of boats and rafts, under which we presume that the 

 Titanic only required, all told, forty-eight deck hands, 

 this total including master and officers." 



The instructions do say that the emigration officer 

 shall satisfy himself that the ofiicers and men shall be 

 -able to " pull an oar." On the Titanic not even the 

 A.B.'s were tested ! 



Wc hereby arraign the Board of Trade. If this Marine 

 Department is out of date let it be s'.vept away. If nautical 

 men are too few on its councils, let more seamen he given posts, 

 and let them be decently paid. At present wc understand that 

 the salary and prospects are not sufficient to tempt men who 



ate m good position;, ahoat The late disaster calls loudly for 

 more nautical men on the cimiicil of this department. 



There is another branch of this question, that of local excur- 

 sion boats. These are iiezrr surveyed by a nautical man. Some 

 of these can be found, certified by an engineer to be fit to carry 

 1,000 passengers, with only boat accommodation for forty! 

 Away %vith this phantom Board of Trade, and give us someone 

 responsible, in flesh and blood, who can be made to answer for 

 such utter disregard of public lives. At present these matters 

 are in the hands of this Board of Trade, apparently quite 

 irresponsible. Give us responsibility, and we shall see a change. 



Women's Rights and "Women First." 

 The editor of the GirVs Own Paper is so carried 

 away by the chivalry that decreed " Women first " 

 on board the sinking ship as to make it a weapon 

 to cudgel the suffragists. That in supreine instances 

 the best that is in manhood comes out is no argument 

 against endeavours to level up the rest of Hfe towards 

 these rare altitudes. The whole of the mad scramble 

 of modern competition in business is entirely opposed 

 to the ethics of a sinking ship ; but that the ethics of 

 the sinking ship are carried out in crucial emergencies 

 is no reason why one should cease endeavours to 

 mitigate the ordinary brutalities of conmiercial com- 

 petition. Tfte editor cries :— 



What of women's rights in a ciisis of this sort ? What about 

 equality when there was a pitiful insufficiency of boats? What 

 about man's "unfairness" to women when things suddenly 

 resolved themselves down to the bare question of a life for a life '/ 

 Supposing men had taken women at their word, and had 

 placed them on an equality with themselves, where would those 

 women have been in a hand-to-hand struggle for the lifeboats ? 



A Rebuke to Arrogance and Levity. 



The Christian Statesman for May expresses wfiat 

 has been, however unjustifiably, a widely-cherished 

 feeling : — 



Ever since the futile attempt, in the building of the tower of 

 Babel, to gain the mastery over untoward forces, men have 

 been vainly struggling to gain dominion, by the massing of 

 their energies, over the elements that seem to war against them. 

 Especially in these last days when science has made such 

 mighty strides .and has put us in possession of knowledge which 

 enables us to use as our servants most of the forces of Nature, 

 has the pride of human society vaunted itself in vain boasts of 

 human achievements. This pride shows itself most conspicu- 

 ously in departures from God and in defiance of His laws. 

 Because of the discovery of the natural laws and processes by 

 which God governs, men have confidently affirmed that there is 

 no God, but that these natural forces are accountable for all 

 that exists and occurs. In their supposed mastery of these 

 forces they have vainly imagined that there was no longer any 

 need to fear God and keep His commandments. 



The excessive levity and frivolity by which human society is 

 characterised is most solemnly rebulicd by this event. Many of 

 the first cabin passengers attended a banquet and a ball on that 

 fateful .Sabbath night. " There w.as a gala lime on the 'Jiliinic," 

 says one report. It would seem that at least on shipboard, 

 where there is no business to transact, no labour to perform, 

 the Sabbath might be observed with some show of respect. ' 



Seamanship versus Dividends. 

 Commander Carlyon Bellairs, R.N., writing in the 

 Contemporary on tht Titanic disaster, laments that 

 seamanship has been relegated to a back seat, and 

 finance is allowed to control. He hopes that wireless 

 apparatus will be made compulsory on all ships with 

 ■' '-ertain number of crew or passengers, with two 



