The Directors of the Canadian Pacific
Railway Company did not sell "safety at sea" to the people on board the
_Empress of Ireland_. They never in the slightest degree pretended to do
so. What they did was to sell them a sea-passage, giving very good value
for the money. Nothing more. As long as men will travel on the water,
the sea-gods will take their toll. They will catch good seamen napping,
or confuse their judgment by arts well known to those who go to sea, or
overcome them by the sheer brutality of elemental forces. It seems to me
that the resentful sea-gods never do sleep, and are never weary; wherein
the seamen who are mere mortals condemned to unending vigilance are no
match for them.
And yet it is right that the responsibility should be fixed. It is the
fate of men that even in their contests with the immortal gods they must
render an account of their conduct. Life at sea is the life in which,
simple as it is, you can't afford to make mistakes.
With whom the mistake lies here, is not for me to say. I see that Sir
Thomas Shaughnessy has expressed his opinion of Captain Kendall's
absolute innocence.
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