The depth of harbors
seems to be the great drawback at present. I cannot say, of
course, just what the limit will be, but the larger boat will
surely come. But speed will not develop with size, so far as
merchantmen are concerned.
"The traveling public prefers the large comfortable boat
of average speed, and anyway that is the boat that pays.
High speed eats up money mile by mile, and extreme high
speed is suicidal. There will be high speed boats for use as
transports and a wise government will assist steamship companies
in paying for them, as the English Government is now
doing in the cases of the Lusitania and Mauretania, twenty-
five knot boats; but no steamship company will put them out
merely as a commercial venture."
Captain Smith believed the Titanic to be unsinkable.
BRAVE TO THE LAST
And though the ship turned out to be sinkable, the captain,
by many acts of bravery in the face of death, proved that his
courage was equal to any test.
Captain Inman Sealby, commander of the steamer Republic,
which was the first vessel to use the wireless telegraph to
save her passengers in a collision, spoke highly of the commander
of the wrecked Titanic, calling him one of the ablest
seamen in the world.
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