by Mayne Reid
CHAPTER FIFTY SIX.
SHIP-SHAPE.
There was one reason that would have influenced me to cut upward throughthe lid. It was, that by taking that direction, I should arrive thesooner at the top of all the packages; and once there, I might find avacant space between them and the timbers of the deck, through which Icould crawl at once to the hatchway. This would give me less tunnellingto do, since the vertical line would be shorter than that passingdiagonally to the hatch. In fact, every foot gained in a horizontaldirection would appear to be no gain at all, since there would still bethe same height to be reached vertically.
It was highly probable there was a space between the cargo and theunder-side of the deck timbers; and in the hope that this might be so, Imade up my mind not to proceed in the horizontal direction unless when Ishould be forced out of the other by some obstacle that I could notremove. For all this, I resolved to make my first cut _horizontally_;and three reasons guided me to this resolve. The first was, that theend-boards of the case appeared somewhat loose, as if they could beeasily got out of the way. The second was, that in thrusting the bladeof my knife through the slits of the lid, it touched against a soft butstiff substance, which had all the "feel" of one of those dreadedpackages which had hitherto proved so often an obstacle, and which I hadalready most bitterly anathematised.
I tried the slit in several places, and still touched what appeared tobe a bale of linen. At the end of the case I made trial also, but thereit was wood that resisted the point of my blade. It appeared to bedeal, and the same as the other boxes were made of; but even had itproved to be timber of the hardest kind, it would be easier to cut ahole through it than through a bale of linen.
This reason would have been of itself sufficient to have influenced meto choose the horizontal direction; but there was still a third thatoffered itself to my view.
This third reason will not be so easily understood by those who areunacquainted with the interior of the hold of a ship, particularly suchships as were built in the time of which I am speaking, which you willremember was a great many years ago. In ships of the proper shape, suchas the Americans have taught us to build, the reason I am about to givewould not have any application.
But I shall enter into particulars, so that you may comprehend it; and,at the same time, in this trifling digression from the thread of mynarrative, I hope, young friends, to teach you a lesson of politicalwisdom that may benefit both you and your country when you are oldenough to practise it.
I hold the doctrine, or, I should rather say, I have long been aware ofthe fact (for there is no "doctrine" about it), that the study which isusually styled Political Science, is the most important study that everoccupied the attention of men. It embraces and influences all otherexistences in the social world. Every art, science, or manufacturehinges upon this, and depends upon it for success or failure. Evenmorality itself is but a corollary of the political state, and crime aconsequence of its bad organisation. The political _status_ of acountry is the _main_ cause of its happiness or its misery. In no casehas government reached anything approaching to justice; hence, there isno people who ever has, as a whole, enjoyed ordinary happiness.Poverty, misery, crime, degradation, are the lot of the _majority_ inevery land, except one, and in that one there is yet nothing nearperfection in government, only a step in advance.
As I have said, then, the _laws_ of a country--in other words, its_political_ condition--influence almost everything: the ship we set sailin, the carriage we ride in, the implements of our labour, the utensilswe employ in our dwellings, even the comfort of our dwellingsthemselves. Nay more, and of still greater importance, they influence_ourselves_--the shape of our bodies, and the disposition of our souls.The dash of a despot's pen, or a foolish act passed in Parliament, whichmight appear to have no personal application to any one, may exert asecret and invisible influence, that, in one single generation, willmake a whole people wicked in soul and ignoble in person.
I could prove what I state with the certainty of a geometric truth, butI have no time now. Enough if I give you an illustration. Hear it,then:--
Many years ago a law was passed in the British Parliament for thetaxation of ships, for they, like everything else, must pay for theirexistence. There was a difficulty how to proportion this tax. It wouldscarcely be just to make the owner of a poor little schooner pay theenormous sum required from him who is the proprietor of a grand ship oftwo thousand tons. It would at once eat up the profits of the lessercraft, and _swamp_ her altogether. How, then, was this difficulty to begot over? A reasonable solution appeared. Tax each vessel inproportion to her tonnage.
The scheme was adopted; but then another difficulty presented itself.How was this proportion to be obtained? It was by _bulk_ that the shipswere to be taxed; but tonnage is _weight_, not bulk. How, then, wasthis new difficulty to be got over? Simply by taking some standard sizeas the weight of a ton, and then ascertaining how many of these _sizes_the vessel would contain. In fact, after all, it came to _measurement_,not weight.
Next came the idea as to how the measurement was to be made, so that itwould exhibit the relative proportions of ships; and that was veryfittingly done by ascertaining in each the length of keel, the breadthof beam, and the depth of the hold. These three, when multipliedtogether, will give relative sizes of ships, _if these skips be properlyconstructed_.
A law was thus obtained sufficiently just for taxation purposes, and youwould think (if you are a superficial thinker) that this law could in noway exert any bad influence, except on those who had the tax to pay.
Not so; that simple, unsuspicious-looking law has caused more evil tothe human race, more waste of time and loss of life, more consumption ofhuman means, than would buy up at the present moment all the slaveryexisting in the world!
How has it done this? You will ask the question with surprise, I haveno doubt.
Simply, then, by its not only having retarded the progress ofimprovement in ship-building--one of the most important arts in thepossession of man--but actually by its having thrown the art _backward_by hundreds of years. And thus came the evil to pass: the owner--or hewho was to be the owner--of a new ship, seeing no means of avoiding theheavy tax, was desirous of reducing it as much as possible, fordishonesty of this kind is the certain and natural result ofover-taxation. He goes to the ship-builder; he orders him to build avessel with such and such measurements of keel, beam and depth of hold--in other words, of such tonnage as will be required to pay a certainamount of tax. But he does not stop there: he desires the builder, ifpossible, to make the vessel otherwise of such capacity that she willactually contain a third more of measured tonnage than that for whichthe tax is to be paid. This will lighten his tax upon the whole, andthus enable him to _cheat the government_ that has put such a grievousimpost upon his enterprise.
Is it possible to build a ship of the kind he requires? Quite so; andthe ship-builder knows he can accomplish it by swelling out the vesselat the bows, and bellying her out at the sides, and broadening her atthe stern, and altogether making her of such a ridiculous shape, thatshe will move slowly, and become the grave of many a hapless mariner.The ship-builder not only knows that this can be done; but, complyingwith the wishes of the merchant-owner, he does it, and has done it forso long a period that he has grown to believe that this clumsy structureis the true shape of a ship, and would not, and could not, build anyother. Nay, still more lamentable to state: this awkward form has sogrown into his thoughts, and become part of his belief, that after thefoolish law is repealed, it will take long, long years to eradicate thedeception from his mind. In fact, a new generation of ship-builderswill have to be waited for, before ships will appear of a proper andconvenient form. Fortunately, that new generation has already sprung upbeyond the Atlantic, and by their aid we shall get out of this hundredyears' dilemma a little sooner. Even they have been half a century inarriving at what is yet far from perfection in the art; but, unsaddledby the incubus of t
he tax, they have been looking at the fishes in thesea, and drawing a few ideas from the mechanism of nature; and hencetheir present superiority.
Now you will better understand what I mean by the assertion that_political science is the most important study that can occupy the mindsof men_.