Some aspects of ocean liner economics

Abstract

My aim when I began this paper was to discuss the economics of ocean cargo liner operation in order to find an acceptable formulation for the problem of profit maximisation. After the first draft of the paper was completed I continued to think about the problem and to reformulate my ideas. At each reformulation some part of the paper was rewritten. The date for submission eventually caught up with me, and (to use an analogy from aircraft construction) the design had to be frozen. Regrettably, it has been frozen at a point at which, to continue the analogy, the wings and fuselage of the aircraft do not fit neatly together. This is my fault, not the fault of my hosts who gave me ample notice to produce a proper paper. But having produced a paper, not exactly an improper one but one to which I hesitate to apply the flattery of propriety, I could not resist the temptation to fiddle as I got new ideas. This has been the undoing of it for I have been unable to think through completely all the consequences of my last piece of fiddling, so that the end result is muddled, and sometimes contradictory. I would not intentionally have delivered a paper in this state, yet I do not apologise. The paper as it stands is, I think, less boring than before I destroyed its wholeness by fiddling; for a paper which has to be sat through, that is something.

Presented to a meeting of the Manchester Statistical Society, 11 March 1964, and published by the Society. Reprinted by permission of the Society.