A Board of Trade--what is it? A Board of . . . I
believe the Speaker of the Irish Parliament is one of the members of it.
A ghost. Less than that; as yet a mere memory. An office with adequate
and no doubt comfortable furniture and a lot of perfectly irresponsible
gentlemen who exist packed in its equable atmosphere softly, as if in a
lot of cotton-wool, and with no care in the world; for there can be no
care without personal responsibility--such, for instance, as the seamen
have--those seamen from whose mouths this irresponsible institution can
take away the bread--as a disciplinary measure. Yes--it's all that. And
what more? The name of a politician--a party man! Less than nothing; a
mere void without as much as a shadow of responsibility cast into it from
that light in which move the masses of men who work, who deal in things
and face the realities--not the words--of this life.
Years ago I remember overhearing two genuine shellbacks of the old type
commenting on a ship's officer, who, if not exactly incompetent, did not
commend himself to their severe judgment of accomplished sailor-men. Said
one, resuming and concluding the discussion in a funnily judicial tone:
"The Board of Trade must have been drunk when they gave him his
certificate.
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