Page:Walker - An Unsinkable Titanic (1912).djvu/202

AN UNSINKABLE TITANIC against sinking, she was as safe a ship as ninety-five out of every hundred merchant vessels afloat to-day.

IX.That the narrowing of the margin of safety in merchant ships during the past fifty years has not been due to urgent considerations of economy, is proved by the fact that shipowners have not hesitated to incur the enormous expense involved in providing the costly machinery to secure high speed, or the equally heavy outlay involved in providing the sumptuous accommodations which characterise the modern liner.

X.If, then, by making moderate concessions in the direction of speed and luxury, it would be possible, without adding to the cost, to reintroduce those structural features which are necessary to render a ship unsinkable, considerations of humanity demand that it should be done.

XI.Should the stupendous disaster of April the 14th lead us back to the sane construction of fifty years ago, and teach us so to construct the future passenger ship that she shall be not merely fast and comfortable, but practically unsinkable, the hapless multitude who went down [ 182 ]