1958 电影：http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nGz3U9DmpTc&feature=related
泰坦尼克号沉船事故何以伤亡惨重？（作者：CHRIS ）
The Real Reason for the Tragedy of the Titanic(By CHRIS )
来源：华尔街日报 2012-04-14 | In the 1958 Titanic film 'A Night to Remember,' Captain Smith is consulting with the shipbuilder Thomas Andrews. After the two realize that the Titanic will sink and that there are not enough lifeboats for even half those aboard, Smith quietly says 'I don't think the Board of Trade regulations visualized this situation, do you?' | 在1958年上映的描述“泰坦尼克号”(Titanic)事件的电影《冰海沉船》(A Night to Remember)中有这么一幕──史密斯船长(Captain Smith)正与造船工程师托马斯•安德鲁斯(Thomas Andrews)商议对策，在意识到轮船将要沉没而救生艇甚至不够半数的乘客逃生之用时，史密斯静静地说道：“我想英国贸易委员会(Board of Trade)恐怕没有预料到会发生这种状况，你觉得呢？” |
| In the run-up to the 100th anniversary of this tragedy this weekend, there's been a lot of commentary about who and what were to blame. Left unsaid is that the Titanic's lifeboat capacity is probably the most iconic regulatory failure of the 20th century. | 本周末将迎来“泰坦尼克号”失事100周年纪念日，在此之前已有不少关于是谁以及是什么原因酿成这一惨剧的评论。不过，这些评论却忽略了这样一点：关于救生艇数量的规定很可能是20世纪最典型的监管失职的例子。 |
| The ship had carried 2,224 people on its maiden voyage but could only squeeze 1,178 people into its lifeboats. There were a host of other failures, accidents, and mishaps which led to the enormous loss of life, but this was the most crucial one: From the moment the Titanic scraped the iceberg, the casualties were going to be unprecedented. | “泰坦尼克号”首航时，船上总共有2,224名船员及乘客，但只有1,178人在事故发生后挤上了救生艇。导致大量乘客丧生的还有其他一大堆因素，比如机械故障、事故和灾祸等，但救生艇数量不足是其中最关键的原因。因此，从“泰坦尼克号”撞上冰山的那一刻起，其伤亡人数注定将史无前例。 |
| Yet the Titanic was fully compliant with all marine laws. The British Board of Trade required all vessels above 10,000 metric tonnes (11,023 U.S. tons) to carry 16 lifeboats. The White Star Line ensured that the Titanic exceeded the requirements by four boats. But the ship was 46,328 tonnes. The Board of Trade hadn't updated its regulations for nearly 20 years. | 尽管如此，“泰坦尼克号”的配备却完全符合所有海洋法的规定。英国贸易委员会要求所有10,000吨以上级别的轮船必须配备16艘救生艇，虽然白星航运公司(White Star Line)为“泰坦尼克号”配备的救生艇的数量比规定的多出了四艘，但这艘巨轮的吨位却高达46,328吨。当时英国贸易委员会已有近20年没有更新相关规定。 |
| The lifeboat regulations were written for a different era and enforced unthinkingly. So why didn't the regulators, shipbuilders or operators make the obvious connection between lifeboat capacity and the total complement of passengers and crew? | 在某一时期制定的有关救生艇数量的规定，到了另一个不同时期却仍被不加思考地执行，可为什么监管机构、轮船制造方以及运营方都没有发现救生艇数量与乘客及船员总数并不匹配这个如此明显的问题呢？ |
| It had been 40 years since the last serious loss of life at sea, when 562 people died on the Atlantic in 1873. By the 20th century, all ships were much safer. | 其中一个原因是，那时已有40年没有发生过人员伤亡惨重的海难。之前一次还是在1873年，当时有562人命丧大西洋。而到了20世纪，轮船的安全系数已经大大提高了。 |
| Moreover, the passage of time changed what regulators and shipowners saw as the purpose of lifeboats. Lifeboats were not designed to keep all the ship and crew afloat while the vessel sank. They were simply to ferry them to nearby rescue ships. | 此外，时代的变化也改变了监管机构和船东对救生艇用途的看法。救生艇不再用来在轮船沉没时载着所有乘客和船员在海上行驶，只是用来将他们运往附近的营救船。 |
| Recent history had confirmed this understanding. The Republic sank in 1909, fatally crippled in a collision. But it took nearly 36 hours for the Republic to submerge. All passengers and crew─except for the few who died in the actual collision─were transferred safely, in stages, to half a dozen other vessels. | 此前不久的一次事件也肯定了这个观点。1909年，“共和号”(Republic)轮船发生撞船事故，并遭到毁灭性破坏，但是它在近36个小时候之后才沉没。除了少数几个人在撞击中丧生之外，其他所有乘客和船员均被分批安全转移至其他六艘轮船上。 |
| Had Titanic sunk more slowly, it would have been surrounded by the Frankfurt, the Mount Temple, the Birma, the Virginian, the Olympic, the Baltic and the first on the scene, the Carpathia. The North Atlantic was a busy stretch of sea. Or, had the Californian (within visual range of the unfolding tragedy) responded to distress calls, the lifeboats would have been adequate for the purpose they were intended─to ferry passengers to safety. | 由于北大西洋是一片非常繁忙的海域，假如“泰坦尼克号”沉没的速度慢些的话，“法兰克福号”(Frankfurt)、“圣殿山号”(Mount Temple)、“缅甸号”(Birma)、“弗吉尼亚人号”(Virginian)、“奥林匹克号”(Olympic)、“波罗的海号”(Baltic)以及后来第一个到达现场的“卡帕西亚号”(Carpathia)本来都有可能在周围施以援手。或者说，假如“加利福尼亚人号”(Californian)轮船──当时就在事故现场不远处，裸眼就能够看到──对求救信号做出回应的话，“泰坦尼克号”救生艇的数量也可能足以实现人们希望它实现的用途──将乘客运往安全之地。 |
| There was, simply, very little reason to question the Board of Trade's wisdom about lifeboat requirements. Shipbuilders and operators thought the government was on top of it; that experts in the public service had rationally assessed the dangers of sea travel and regulated accordingly. Otherwise why have the regulations at all? | 如此看来，几乎没有什么理由去质疑英国贸易委员会有关救生艇数量的规定是否明智。轮船制造方和运营方认为，不但政府对此胸有成竹，就连公共服务领域的专家也都理性地评估了航海旅行的危险并做出了相应的规定。否则的话，要这些规定有什么用呢？ |
| This is not the way the story is usually told. | 然而，关于“泰坦尼克号”失事的故事却不是如此讲述的。 |
| Recall in James Cameron's 1997 film, 'Titanic,' the fictionalized Thomas Andrews character claims to have wanted to install extra lifeboats but 'it was thought by some that the deck would look too cluttered.' Mr. Cameron saw his movie as a metaphor for the end of the world, so historical accuracy was not at a premium. | 我们来回顾一下1997年詹姆斯•卡梅隆(James Cameron)执导的影片《泰坦尼克号》(Titanic)，片中的角色托马斯•安德鲁斯声称曾想过多配备一些救生艇，但“有些人认为甲板会看上去过于杂乱”。卡梅隆将这部影片看作是世界末日的象征，因此准确地再现历史并不是他首要考虑的问题。 |
| Yet the historian Simon Schama appears to have received his knowledge of this issue from the Cameron film, writing in Newsweek recently that 'Chillingly, the shortage of lifeboats was due to shipboard aesthetics.' (Mr. Schama also sees the Titanic as a metaphor, this time for 'global capitalism' hitting the Lehman Brothers iceberg.) | 然而，历史学家西蒙•沙玛(Simon Schama)似乎是从卡梅隆的电影中了解到了有关这个问题的说法。他最近在《新闻周刊》(Newsweek)撰文称：“让人不寒而栗的是，救生艇不足的原因竟是为了让甲板看上去美观。” 沙玛也将“泰坦尼克号”视为一种象征，不过这次是“全球资本主义”撞上了雷曼兄弟(Lehman Brothers)这座冰山。 |
| This claim─that the White Star Line chose aesthetics over lives─hinges on a crucial conversation between Alexander Carlisle, the managing director of the shipyard where Titanic was built, and his customer Bruce Ismay, head of White Star Line, in 1910. | 白星航运公司为了美观而舍了人命的说法是否成立，这取决于亚历山大•卡利斯勒(Alexander Carlisle)与布鲁斯•伊斯梅(Bruce Ismay)在1910年的一段关键性对话。卡利斯勒是建造“泰坦尼克号”的船厂的董事总经理，身为白星航运公司老板的伊斯梅则是他的客户。 |
| Carlisle proposed that White Star equip its ships with 48 lifeboats─in retrospect, more than enough to save all passengers and crew. Yet after a few minutes discussion, Ismay and other senior managers rejected the proposal. The Titanic historian Daniel Allen Butler (author of 'Unsinkable') says Carlisle's idea was rejected 'on the grounds of expense.' | 回想起来，当时卡利斯勒曾提议白星航运为这艘轮船配备48艘救生艇，要营救所有乘客和船员的话绰绰有余。然而，经过数分钟讨论之后，伊斯梅和其他高级管理人员否决了该提议。研究“泰坦尼克号”的历史学家、《永不沉没》(Unsinkable)一书的作者丹尼尔•艾伦•巴特勒(Daniel Allen Butler)称，卡利斯勒的意见“因为成本原因”遭到拒绝。 |
| But that's not true. In the Board of Trade's post-accident inquiry, Carlisle was very clear as to why White Star declined to install extra lifeboats: The firm wanted to see whether regulators required it. As Carlisle told the inquiry, 'I was authorized then to go ahead and get out full plans and designs, so that if the Board of Trade did call upon us to fit anything more we would have no extra trouble or extra expense.' | 但是，这种说法并不正确。根据英国贸易委员会在事故后展开的调查，卡利斯勒十分清楚白星航运为什么会拒绝多配备些救生艇──该公司意欲试探监管机构是否会这么要求。他在接受调查时称：“当时我曾被授权准备完整的计划和设计方案，这样一来如果贸易委员会确实要求我们增加救生艇数量的话，我们也不会有额外的麻烦或负担额外的成本。” |
| So the issue was not cost, per se, or aesthetics, but whether the regulator felt it necessary to increase the lifeboat requirements for White Star's new, larger, class of ship. | 因此，这个问题本身与成本或美观无关，而是关系到监管机构觉得是否有必要提高对白星航运这艘更庞大的新型轮船的救生艇数量的要求。 |
| This undercuts the convenient morality tale about safety being sacrificed for commercial success that sneaks into most accounts of the Titanic disaster. | 这让一般人所认为的因为商业利益而牺牲了安全保障这个颇富道德寓意的故事有些站不住脚，而大多数关于“泰坦尼克号”海难的说法都已经在不知不觉中受到了这个故事的影响。 |
| The responsibility for lifeboats came 'entirely practically under the Board of Trade,' as Carlisle described the industry's thinking at the time. Nobody seriously thought to second-guess the board's judgment. | 正如卡利斯勒所说，当时航运业普遍的想法就是，救生艇数量够还是不够实际上应该完全由英国贸易委员会决定。然而，事后并没有人质疑该委员会的判断。 |
| This is a distressingly common problem. Governments find it easy to implement regulations but tedious to maintain existing ones─politicians gain little political benefit from updating old laws, only from introducing new laws. | 这个问题不但让人烦恼不已，而且相当常见。在政府部门看来，推行新法规容易，但要维持现有的规定却枯燥乏味──政客们从更新旧法规中几乎得不到什么政治利益，他们只能从推行新法规中获益。 |
| And regulated entities tend to comply with the specifics of the regulations, not with the goal of the regulations themselves. All too often, once government takes over, what was private risk management becomes regulatory compliance. | 同时，被监管的实体往往都机械地遵守规定的细则，而不会去领会规定所包含的精神。一旦政府介入，私营部门的风险管理问题就变成了监管合规问题。 |
| It's easy to weave the Titanic disaster into a seductive tale of hubris, social stratification and capitalist excess. But the Titanic's chroniclers tend to put their moral narrative ahead of their historical one. | 将“泰坦尼克号”海难编成一个关于傲慢、社会阶层分化和资本过剩的诱人故事并不难，但是故事的记录者们似乎更看重道德寓意而忽视了历史真相。 |
| At the accident's core is this reality: British regulators assumed responsibility for lifeboat numbers and then botched that responsibility. With a close reading of the evidence, it is hard not to see the Titanic disaster as a tragic example of government failure. | 这个灾难的核心是这样一个现实：英国监管机构肩负着制定救生艇数量规定的职责，却没有履行好这一责任。仔细审视这些证据就不难发现，“泰坦尼克号”的悲剧正是政府监管失职的一种体现。 |
| Mr. Berg is a fellow at the Institute of Public Affairs in Melbourne, Australia. This op-ed originally appeared on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's website The Drum (www.abc.net.au) on April 11. | （编者按：本文作者CHRIS BERG是澳大利亚墨尔本公共事务研究所(Institute of Public Affairs)研究员。本文原文最初于4月11日作为专栏文章发表在澳大利亚广播公司(Australian Broadcasting Corporation)的网站The Drum(www.abc.net.au)上。） |
| /> | /> |
