Safety is built in to the activities of the prudent ship operator. Ant investment made towards this end is likely to have a measurable payback in positive terms. That there must be an investment is inevitable, because the industry at large has let things slip too far too long. Those who have not allowed it to slip too far and who are the first to recognize that safety, far from costing money, in the long term actually preserves it, will be wieners. Too many seem to have lost sight of the fact that every one hundred pennies saved is a full one hundred pennies profit. Every hundred pennies of additional revenue contributes no more then fifteen pence to profit. Environmental protection is not so simple, nor so financially attractive. Man needs the minerals of the Earth as well as the products of the soil and sea survive. We(the human race) are still not in the position, politically or financially to manage the Earth's assets without causing damage. The evidence of our damage is evident in many different parts of the Glove and will in some cases haunt several generations still to come. We have learned a lot, and continue to learn, but despite the best intentions some Government needs for their people will be at the expense of people in another region for the foreseeable future. We sailors ply the seas with the raw materials of commerce as well as the finished and part finished goods. It does not always sit well to consider too deeply what effect the ship and the cargo it carries is having, or may have, on some communities, or on the sea through which sail. None my generation can hold up his head and claim to be without blame in the pollution of the seas. Times are changing though, and Governments are turning their attention more to the protection of our planet and its precious resources. This will not be without cost. The investment will have to be made not for our benefit, but for the benefit of generations yet to come, however the cost will have to be borne by society as a whole, not by the shipping community alone. The debate surrounding the choice between engineering our way to a better tomorrow, or adapting our working practices will continue. Each method has the same goal as its target and as long as we attain the goal does it really matter how we get there?

• Captain A.G. Marsh