Chapter 56 - The Boy Tar by Mayne Reid
Ship-Shape
There was one reason that would have influenced me to cut upward through the lid. It was, that by taking that direction, I should arrive the sooner at the top of all the packages; and once there, I might find a vacant space between them and the timbers of the deck, through which I could crawl at once to the hatchway. This would give me less tunnelling to do, since the vertical line would be shorter than that passing diagonally to the hatch. In fact, every foot gained in a horizontal direction would appear to be no gain at all, since there would still be the same height to be reached vertically.
It was highly probable there was a space between the cargo and the under-side of the deck timbers; and in the hope that this might be so, I made up my mind not to proceed in the horizontal direction unless when I should be forced out of the other by some obstacle that I could not remove. For all this, I resolved to make my first cut horizontally; and three reasons guided me to this resolve. The first was, that the end-boards of the case appeared somewhat loose, as if they could be easily got out of the way. The second was, that in thrusting the blade of my knife through the slits of the lid, it touched against a soft but stiff substance, which had all the “feel” of one of those dreaded packages which had hitherto proved so often an obstacle, and which I had already most bitterly anathematised.
I tried the slit in several places, and still touched what appeared to be a bale of linen. At the end of the case I made trial also, but there it was wood that resisted the point of my blade. It appeared to be deal, and the same as the other boxes were made of; but even had it proved to be timber of the hardest kind, it would be easier to cut a hole through it than through a bale of linen.
This reason would have been of itself sufficient to have influenced me to choose the horizontal direction; but there was still a third that offered itself to my view.
This third reason will not be so easily understood by those who are unacquainted with the interior of the hold of a ship, particularly such ships as were built in the time of which I am speaking, which you will remember was a great many years ago. In ships of the proper shape, such as the Americans have taught us to build, the reason I am about to give would 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 my narrative, I hope, young friends, to teach you a lesson of political wisdom that may benefit both you and your country when you are old enough to practise it.
I hold the doctrine, or, I should rather say, I have long been aware of the fact (for there is no “doctrine” about it), that the study which is usually styled Political Science, is the most important study that ever occupied the attention of men. It embraces and influences all other existences in the social world. Every art, science, or manufacture hinges upon this, and depends upon it for success or failure. Even morality itself is but a corollary of the political state, and crime a consequence of its bad organisation. The political status of a country is the main cause of its happiness or its misery. In no case has government reached anything approaching to justice; hence, there is no people who ever has, as a whole, enjoyed ordinary happiness. Poverty, misery, crime, degradation, are the lot of the majority in every land, except one, and in that one there is yet nothing near perfection 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 sail in, the carriage we ride in, the implements of our labour, the utensils we employ in our dwellings, even the comfort of our dwellings themselves. 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, which might appear to have no personal application to any one, may exert a secret and invisible influence, that, in one single generation, will make a whole people wicked in soul and ignoble in person.
I could prove what I state with the certainty of a geometric truth, but I 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 the taxation of ships, for they, like everything else, must pay for their existence. There was a difficulty how to proportion this tax. It would scarcely be just to make the owner of a poor little schooner pay the enormous sum required from him who is the proprietor of a grand ship of two thousand tons. It would at once eat up the profits of the lesser craft, and swamp her altogether. How, then, was this difficulty to be got over? A reasonable solution appeared. Tax each vessel in proportion 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 ships were to be taxed; but tonnage is weight, not bulk. How, then, was this new difficulty to be got over? Simply by taking some standard size as 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 it would exhibit the relative proportions of ships; and that was very fittingly done by ascertaining in each the length of keel, the breadth of beam, and the depth of the hold. These three, when multiplied together, will give relative sizes of ships, if these skips be properly constructed.
A law was thus obtained sufficiently just for taxation purposes, and you would think (if you are a superficial thinker) that this law could in no way exert any bad influence, except on those who had the tax to pay.
Not so; that simple, unsuspicious-looking law has caused more evil to the human race, more waste of time and loss of life, more consumption of human means, than would buy up at the present moment all the slavery existing in the world!
How has it done this? You will ask the question with surprise, I have no doubt.
Simply, then, by its not only having retarded the progress of improvement in ship-building—one of the most important arts in the possession 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 he who was to be the owner—of a new ship, seeing no means of avoiding the heavy tax, was desirous of reducing it as much as possible, for dishonesty of this kind is the certain and natural result of over-taxation. He goes to the ship-builder; he orders him to build a vessel 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 certain amount of tax. But he does not stop there: he desires the builder, if possible, to make the vessel otherwise of such capacity that she will actually contain a third more of measured tonnage than that for which the tax is to be paid. This will lighten his tax upon the whole, and thus enable him to cheat the government that has put such a grievous impost upon his enterprise.
Is it possible to build a ship of the kind he requires? Quite so; and the ship-builder knows he can accomplish it by swelling out the vessel at the bows, and bellying her out at the sides, and broadening her at the stern, and altogether making her of such a ridiculous shape, that she will move slowly, and become the grave of many a hapless mariner. The ship-builder not only knows that this can be done; but, complying with the wishes of the merchant-owner, he does it, and has done it for so long a period that he has grown to believe that this clumsy structure is the true shape of a ship, and would not, and could not, build any other. Nay, still more lamentable to state: this awkward form has so grown into his thoughts, and become part of his belief, that after the foolish law is repealed, it will take long, long years to eradicate the deception from his mind. In fact, a new generation of ship-builders will have to be waited for, before ships will appear of a proper and convenient form. Fortunately, that new generation has already sprung up beyond the Atlantic, and by their aid we shall get out of this hundred years’ dilemma a little sooner. Even they have been half a century in arriving at what is yet far from perfection in the art; but, unsaddled by the incubus of the tax, they have been looking at the fishes in the sea, and drawing a few ideas from the mechanism of nature; and hence their 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 minds of men.