III. If it be structurally possible, and the cost is not prohibitive, passenger ships should be so designed, that they cannot be sunk by any of the accidents of the sea,--not even by such a disaster as befell the _Titanic_. IV. That such design and construction are possible is proved by the fact that the first of the large ocean liners, the _Great Eastern_, built over half a century ago, so far fulfilled these conditions, that, after receiving injuries to her hull more extensive than those which sank the _Titanic_, she came safely to port. V. It is not to the point to attribute the financial failure of the _Great Eastern_ to the costly character of her construction. She failed because, commercially, she was ahead of her time, passenger and freight traffic being yet in their infancy when the ship was launched. Cheap steel and modern shipyard facilities have made it possible to build a ship of the size and unsinkable characteristics of the _Great Eastern_, with a reduction in the cost of twenty to thirty per cent. VI. The principles of unsinkable construction, as formulated by Brunel and worked out in this remarkable ship, have been adopted in their entirety by naval constructors, and are to be found embodied in every modern warship. These elements--the double skin, transverse and longitudinal bulkheads, and watertight decks--are the _sine qua non_ of warship construction; and in the designing of warships, they receive the first consideration, all other questions of speed, armour-protection, and gun-power being made subordinate. VII. In the building of merchant ships, unsinkable construction has been sacrificed to considerations of speed, convenience of operation, and the provision of luxurious accommodations for the travelling public. The inner skin, the longitudinal bulkhead, and the watertight deck have been abandoned. Although the transverse bulkhead has been retained, its efficiency has been greatly impaired; for, whereas these bulkheads in the _Great Eastern_ extended thirty feet above the water-line; in the _Titanic_, they were carried only ten feet above the same point. VIII. The portentous significance of this decline in the art of unsinkable construction will be realised, when it is borne in mind that the _Titanic_ was built to the highest requirements of the Board of Trade and the insurance companies. She was the latest example of current and approved practice in the construction of high-class passenger ships of the first magnitude; and, judged on the score of safety against sinking, she was as safe a ship as ninety-five out of every hundred merchant vessels afloat to-day.