LAW OF THE SEA

Manawatu Times, Volume LIV, Issue 6946, 27 June 1929, Page 3

LAW OF THE SEA

Should Captains go Down With Their Ships?

TRADITION AND EMOTION

Recent, whipping Titters in the Old World sens lmvo raised a controleisy as to whether it is really heroic W a cantata to go down with Ins sink u ship. On this question the Liverpool Post writes: — , , “There is'no custom, barbaric 01 other, which ordains that a captain should go down with his ship. hue tradition is, and it is both proper and honourable, that a captain should be the last to leave the ship. that merely means that it is his duty that overtone on board should have a chance to bo saved before he leaves and that nothing more can be done ioi tic sel. There is no “barbaric custom about that. . ' “There is something in it, none the less. It is beyond doubt that some recent incidents'' have intended to encourage the idea that a captain should go down with his ship- Cases in which masters have remained on the bridge after everything possible tract been done for passenegrs and ship have been greeted with popular applause. “And, of course, we can all umucistand the emotion of so terrible an occasion, a captain may feel that his own life is bound tip with that oil the ship he commanded, and that he must pass with the passing of his vessel. \\c cun appreciate and sympathise, vnth such a feeling arising out of an overwhelmning and tragic strain. Blit it is not, therefore, necessarily justified, and certainly any custom that may spring from it ought to be resolutely resisted rather than encouraged.

“The plain duty of a captain is to save till the lives entrusted to his care and then to save himself . He one., this to his own memory, for however far beyond criticism and reproach his action may have been, no one can justify it in "the eyes of the world as the man himself could do.

“There is a publ.is reason for discountenancing any idea that a skipper should go down with his ship. The captain knows best what has happened and he, presumable. is best able to set forth the lessons of his terrible experience so that others may be warned and perhaps saved. Such a consideration imposes upon captains, very obviously, the duty of saving themselves.’'