No boats! Great should be the gratitude of passage-selling
Combines to Pooh-Bah; and they ought to cherish his memory when he dies.
But no fear of that. His kind never dies. All you have to do, O
Combine, is to knock at the door of the Marine Department, look in, and
beckon to the first man you see. That will be he, very much at your
service--prepared to affirm after "ten years of my best consideration"
and a bundle of statistics in hand, that: "There's no lesson to be
learned, and that there is nothing to be done!"
On an earlier day there was another witness before the Court of Inquiry.
A mighty official of the White Star Line. The impression of his
testimony which the Report gave is of an almost scornful impatience with
all this fuss and pother. Boats! Of course we have crowded our decks
with them in answer to this ignorant clamour. Mere lumber! How can we
handle so many boats with our davits? Your people don't know the
conditions of the problem. We have given these matters our best
consideration, and we have done what we thought reasonable. We have done
more than our duty. We are wise, and good, and impeccable.
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