British Wreck Commissioner's Inquiry
Day 28
Final Arguments, cont.
Sir Robert Finlay:
Read the next question, 13681.
Mr. Scanlan:
Question 13681 is: "Did that happen so during the rest of your watch? - (A.) No, it was perfectly clear" - that is up to 10 o'clock. The answer at question 13680 is showing his knowledge and appreciation of the fact that a haze might be expected to arise locally in the circumstances in which they were. At page 327 he is asked this, at Question 14335: "At all events, it was more difficult then than under normal circumstances to see an iceberg. You observed that yourself from six to ten" - and his answer is "Yes."
The Commissioner:
That had nothing to do with haze.
Mr. Scanlan:
No, my Lord, but it at all events had to do with the peculiar atmospheric conditions in which he and those responsible for the navigation of the ship found themselves between 10 and 12 o'clock, and even between 8 and 10 o'clock, and I think it right to call your Lordship's attention to it.
The Commissioner:
I do not know whether you have overlooked it, but there is Mr. Lightoller's evidence on page 322.
Mr. Scanlan:
I have that.
The Commissioner:
Then you will have to go back if you are coming to it. You are not taking it in its order.
Mr. Scanlan:
It deals with the weather conditions.
The Commissioner:
No, it deals with this question of haze.
Mr. Scanlan:
Yes, my Lord.
The Commissioner:
He says this: [14194] "No reference to what the weather had been after 10 o'clock. - (A.) No. The weather was perfectly clear when I came on deck after the accident, and the slightest degree of haze on the surface of the water would have been very noticeable, or, rather, I might put it the other way: It is proved that there was no haze by some of the boats noticing from the waterline this vessel's lights. I think that has been mentioned, and if there had been the slightest degree of haze they would not have seen them."
Mr. Scanlan:
Yes, my Lord, and then it goes on: "As far as you saw, did you see any change in the weather conditions at all while you were working, helping to get these boats out? - (A.) Absolutely none. (Q.) Right up to the time the ship went down is it your view that the conditions were the same as they were between 6 and 10? - (A.) Precisely. (Q.) Can you suggest at all how it can have come about that this iceberg should not have been seen at a greater distance? - (A.) It is very difficult indeed to come to any conclusion. Of course, we know now the extraordinary combination of circumstances that existed at that time, which you would not meet again once in 100 years; that they should all have existed just on that particular night shows, of course, that everything was against us. (The Commissioner.) When you make a general statement of that kind I want you to particularise. What were the circumstances? - (A.) I was going to give them, my Lord. In the first place there was no moon. (Q.) That is frequently the case? - (A.) Very. I daresay it had been the last quarter or the first quarter. Then there was no wind - not the slightest breath of air. And most particular of all, in my estimation is the fact, a most extraordinary circumstance, that there was not any swell. Had there been the slightest degree of swell I have no doubt that berg would have been seen in plenty of time to clear it. (Q.) Wait a minute: No moon, no wind, no swell? - The moon we knew of, the wind we knew of, but the absence of swell we did not know of. You naturally conclude that you do not meet with a sea like it was, like a table-top or a floor, a most extraordinary circumstance, and I guarantee that 99 men out of 100 could never call to mind actual proof of there having been such an absolutely smooth sea." I think in one passage of the evidence which I have read he did say that it was flat and known to be flat at the time.
The Commissioner:
What was flat?
Mr. Scanlan:
That the sea was flat.
The Commissioner:
Yes, he said that frequently.
Mr. Scanlan:
Yes, and that there was no breeze, and this is the first time the suggestion is made by him that he did not know until afterwards that there was no swell.
The Attorney-General:
No, I think he said that from the first.
The Commissioner:
His whole case was that there was no swell, no wind, and no moon, and those three circumstances put together, he said, accounted for the iceberg not being seen, although the weather was quite clear.
The Attorney-General:
He did not know there was no swell until the accident had happened.
Mr. Scanlan:
Afterwards.
The Commissioner:
Yes, he found it out when he was launching the boats that there was no swell, because the water did not lift the boat.
The Attorney-General:
Yes, it could not get free from the tackle.
Mr. Scanlan:
There is this statement from him, which summarises the whole of his evidence; and is, I think, consistent with what he has said in these various passages. I have already referred to it at page 327, Question 14335: "At all events it was more difficult then than under normal circumstances to see an iceberg. You observed that yourself from six to ten?" And he answered, "Yes."
I want to refer generally now to the evidence given by the survivors and by members of the crew. We know now that they were in the midst of icebergs round about where the ship sank and where they were rowing until they were picked up by the "Carpathia"; but no single Witness who has been called has told us that any of the survivors noticed those icebergs while they were in the small boats, while, of course, they all saw them in the morning. There is the evidence of the Officer Boxhall, at page 358.
The Commissioner:
Are you suggesting that when the people got into the boats they did not see the iceberg because they were in a haze? You cannot forget the fact that they saw the light miles away.
Mr. Scanlan:
I can conceive a great difference between seeing a light and seeing an iceberg.
The Commissioner:
Yes, of course.
Mr. Scanlan:
There is this important distinction, according to Mr. Lightoller's evidence, that an iceberg may be surrounded with its own haze, due to the fact that it is an iceberg, and that it takes it out of comparison at once with the visibility of the lights on a ship or of other lights which those people might have seen. Then, on page 358, in the evidence of Boxhall -
The Commissioner:
Are you going to be much longer on this point?
Mr. Scanlan:
No, my Lord. I finish with this reference with all the evidence on this point that I have collected. At page 358, Question 15488, Boxhall is asked: "Did you see any ice when the day broke? - (A.) Yes, I saw quite a lot of ice at daybreak. (Q.) Large bergs, did you see? - (A.) The first ice I saw, I saw it probably about half a mile on the port bow of the 'Carpathia' just as I was approaching it, when I got about two ship's lengths away from her. Day was breaking then." I give that as a typical sample of the evidence we have had from survivors on this point. These are the only references to the weather conditions with which I am going to trouble your Lordship. But looking to the procès-verbal and the statements in the messages from the Captain, there is a reference on page 5 to the moderate, variable weather. Those are the messages sent from the "Titanic" to other ships - to the "Caronia" and the "Noordam."
The Commissioner:
I do not see the particular telegram you are talking about.
Mr. Scanlan:
It is a separate Paper that I have here, which is supplied to us all by the learned Attorney-General.
The Commissioner:
From whom is the telegram, and to whom?
Mr. Scanlan:
From Captain Smith, on Sunday the 14th. One of them is to the Captain of the "Caronia," and the other is to the "Noordam." The only reason that I read them is that he mentions on the Sunday variable weather.
The Commissioner:
There has been variable weather. At 3 o'clock in the afternoon there was, I think, some wind, but I do not know what this has got to do with a haze at twenty minutes to 12 at night, when they were approaching the iceberg.
Mr. Scanlan:
Except that the weather was variable. What I was going to suggest on the whole of this was that whether or not your Lordship agrees with the positive statements of the four Witnesses, who stated here that there was a haze or whether you take the conversation of Mr. Lightoller, this, at all events is established, that the atmospheric conditions that night were abnormal, and it was recognised on this watch up to 10 o'clock that it was more difficult to see icebergs on account of those peculiar conditions than it would be under normal circumstances.
The Commissioner:
I do not think you are right there. The right way to put it is this - and this is what I think Mr. Lightoller meant - he did not then realise that it was difficult to see the ice, but he subsequently asked himself how it was he had not seen it, and then he said: "These are the circumstances which only happen once in a hundred years which prevented my seeing it."
Mr. Scanlan:
I could take that explanation of it, my Lord, were it not that he does not say that himself. At page 327, in the question to which your Lordship has already referred, he is asked: [14335] "At all events, it was more difficult then than under normal circumstances to see an iceberg. You observed that yourself from six to ten?" And he answered: "Yes." That, my Lord, coupled with the fact that he had various conversations with the Captain as to the difficulty of seeing bergs -
The Commissioner:
Where is that? He had a conversation with the Captain as to the possibility of a change in the weather, and to the effect that the Captain was to be advised at once; but I do not remember any conversation he had with the Captain as to the difficulty of seeing icebergs.
Mr. Scanlan:
I have given your Lordship the references.
The Commissioner:
I think you have read it all to us.
Mr. Scanlan:
I read the evidence he gave as to his conversation with the Captain, and I think this part of the evidence, and the statement which he makes that he recognised, between 6 and 10 o'clock, that it was more difficult to see icebergs than under normal circumstances, justifies me in making this observation, that on this occasion no extra precautions for safety were adopted, no extra look-out men were stationed, and there was no reduction of the speed. What I submit to your Lordship is that even in normal circumstances on a clear night where those abnormal conditions did not exist, but where warning was given of the presence of ice in a region through which the ship would pass, it would then have been the duty of those responsible for the navigation of the ship to have taken extraordinary and proper precautions to secure safety.
The Commissioner:
I thoroughly appreciate that point.
Mr. Scanlan:
I am bound to say that in addition to the warning of ice, and the certainty of Mr. Lightoller and the Captain, and Mr. Ismay, that they were coming into ice, and that they would be in the ice regions that night, there was a duty on the owners which was not discharged, and in particular on Mr. Ismay. I am sorry to have to say it, but I feel it my duty to say that there was a duty on the Officers responsible for the navigation of the ship to have taken precautions to avoid the iceberg, and my submission is that those precautions were not taken, and that the failure to take those precautions in the peculiar circumstances, which I have referred your Lordship to, is negligence of a very serious character. I should be very sorry to asperse the character of Captain Smith, but while it is the case that Captain Smith has been drowned, it is also the case that hundreds of the passengers and hundreds of the crew are also drowned, and the whole of this dreadful tragedy is due, in the view I submit to your Lordship, not to any defect in the ship, but to the want of proper seamanship, to want of skill in her navigation, and to utter disregard of the warnings that had been given and of the duties incumbent on them under the peculiar weather conditions which prevailed that night.
The Attorney-General:
There is just one point I will call attention to, so that your Lordship may have it in mind, because I do not want to get back to it. You said that in the conversation with the Captain there was no reference intended to a haze. That does not quite seem to accord with what happened.
The Commissioner:
The difficulty of seeing icebergs.
The Attorney-General:
But in reference to haze, I want to call attention - so that you may have it in mind, and I may not have to travel over these numbers of questions again - to page 307, Questions 13639 to 13641. I think they bear out what my learned friend, Mr. Scanlan, said about this conversation, because your Lordship asked him what he meant by saying: "If it becomes at all doubtful," and "What did the Captain mean?" Then he gives his explanation, and it is "About the weather; about the distance I could see - principally those two conditions it would refer to. If there were the slightest degree of haze to arise, the slightest haze whatever, if that were to any degree noticeable, to immediately notify him." That is what I think my learned friend, Mr. Scanlan, was thinking of.
Mr. Scanlan:
Yes.
Sir Robert Finlay:
But that does not bear it out.
The Commissioner:
But I understood Mr. Scanlan to say that there was some conversation between the Captain and Mr. Lightoller as to the difficulty of seeing icebergs.
The Attorney-General:
I think that is what he was referring to. He said he had read it, and your Lordship said: "I do not think that has anything to do with haze." I agree haze never was mentioned, but only when the question was put to Mr. Lightoller he seemed to think it included haze. That is the only point.
Sir Robert Finlay:
I do not think it bears that out.
(After a short adjournment.)
Mr. Scanlan:
Just before the adjournment, my Lord, I was making a submission that the immediate cause of the disaster was the bad seamanship of those responsible for the navigation of the "Titanic" at the time when she met with the disaster. I did not mean, however, and I wish to make myself clear on this point, to be understood as saying that the "Titanic" complied with all the requirements that she should have complied with, or that she was a perfect ship. I think it is only fair to some of my friends who are to follow me to make that clear to your Lordship. I say that the "Titanic" should have slackened speed, or, at all events, that she should have doubled her look-outs, and this involves both the Officers who were responsible and, I submit, also the owners. It is important to bear in mind what the position of the owners is in this connection. They not only said in the evidence that their Commanders have no instructions to slacken speed, but in one part of the case, at page 441, Mr. Ismay, under examination by the Attorney-General, said they would be justified even in increasing speed.
The Commissioner:
What question is that?
Mr. Scanlan:
18434, on page 440, and 18448, on page 441.
The Commissioner:
You do not take exception to what he says in Question 18434, do you? It is a truism you know. If you can see far enough to avoid the ice you need not alter your speed.
Mr. Scanlan:
This is how it is qualified in Question 18448: "So that on a perfectly fine, clear night, with the expectation that you are coming within the region of ice, your view is that the Captain would be justified in increasing his speed? - (A.) I do not see any reason why he should not, so long as he could see sufficiently far to clear the ice."
The Commissioner:
It is the same answer. Do you take exception to that?
Mr. Scanlan:
I do, my Lord.
The Commissioner:
Assuming he can see sufficiently far to clear it, why should he slacken speed?
Mr. Scanlan:
Why should it be assumed, my Lord?
The Commissioner:
No, but you must take his assumption.
Mr. Scanlan:
I do, and I quarrel with the assumption.
The Commissioner:
You may quarrel with the assumption, but assuming that you can see the ice far enough to clear it, I cannot understand why, if you take that assumption, he should trouble himself about the speed.
Mr. Scanlan:
I daresay if you are to assume that you can see far enough ahead and that you can see an iceberg in time to avoid it, it may be so; but what I do say is that the assumption is not reasonable. In another part of his evidence, to which your Lordship will no doubt be referred, he said, in answer to the Attorney-General, that he knew there was always danger, or that there was danger, in the proximity of ice. I have not the exact reference just now.
At page 448, Question 18713, he is asked: "Do not you think, as ice was reported in your track, and as you expected to be in the presence of ice, that the look-out should have been doubled? - (A.) I do not. (Q.) Is it still your view that your captains and Officers are discharging their duty in crossing the Atlantic, when ice is reported to them, in going ahead at full speed, and taking no extra precautions? - (A.) So long as they can see the object far enough ahead to be able to avoid it."
There is no need to bring home to the owners of the "Titanic" that so far as their instructions to their Officers are concerned there is no prohibition, no direction against going at full speed in such circumstances as those I have indicated, because not only have they produced their regulations to establish that, but they have called numerous Captains of the various lines controlled by the Liverpool Company or the American Trust to give evidence, all to the same effect.
The Commissioner:
Will you for my assistance tell me what they ought to say in their sailing directions?
Mr. Scanlan:
I think they should give particular directions in regard to the approach of ice.
The Commissioner:
What should they say?
Mr. Scanlan:
I think it would not be unreasonable in the case of a ship, the speed of which is 21 ¾ to 22 knots, that if a Captain gets a message of ice in his track at night, he should reduce his speed; I think half that speed would be a very high limit of speed in those circumstances.
The Commissioner:
Then do you say that there should be in the sailing directions an order that if they are advised there is ice in their track - I do not know how far it may be off - they must not go at more than a certain speed? At what speed?
Mr. Scanlan:
I should say when they are approaching ice they should reduce their speed.
The Commissioner:
How much?
Mr. Scanlan:
I think they should reduce their speed to such an extent that it would be possible for them to escape the iceberg.
The Commissioner:
Do you think it requires a direction of that kind?
Mr. Scanlan:
It is difficult for a layman in nautical matters to say what would be a reasonable speed when approaching ice.
The Commissioner:
Must not that be left to the Captain?
Mr. Scanlan:
I do not know that it should be left to the Captain, my Lord. I think, at all events, the circumstances of this terrible accident point to the necessity of some direction being given, or some recommendation being made as to the reduction of speed in the proximity of ice.
Here you have the owner of the ship saying that he would not double the look-outs where ice was expected; he is quite definite on that.
The Commissioner:
The Cunard Company do not give those directions, do they?
Mr. Scanlan:
I do not think it has been shown that they do, my Lord.
The Commissioner:
I think it has been shown that they do not know, and I do not know that German liners give that direction. They say what, of course, they must say, that every man in command of a ship must do all that reason and experience dictate to him to preserve his ship, and to preserve the lives of his passengers.
Mr. Scanlan:
That is not saying much to him, my Lord; in fact, it is leaving everything to his discretion.
The Commissioner:
How those sailing directions can govern the discretion of the Captain in each particular case that may arise, I am at a loss to understand. Are the sailing directions to tell him when he is to port his helm?
Mr. Scanlan:
I do not make such an extreme proposition as that, my Lord; I think he has to qualify and pass an examination, and in his Apprenticeship he gets all the knowledge that is necessary to teach him that. But if there is, and undoubtedly there is, a somewhat general practice which I am forced to regard as a very dangerous practice, of not slackening speed at night when ice is reported on the track, surely it is time that something was done to put a stop to that practice. If it could be done by giving directions that speed is to be diminished or that the speed should not exceed a certain limit, say 10 knots an hour, that would be a positive direction which, if it had been in force on this occasion would probably have averted the collision. I think the importance of a direction on that point is sufficiently evidenced by what we have heard at this Enquiry, and that I am justified in making a submission to your Lordship on that point.
The Commissioner:
That is very proper, but are you now trying to fix the liability for this calamity upon the owners, as distinguished from the Captain? I do not know quite what you are driving at.
Mr. Scanlan:
So far as legal liability is concerned, I take it we are not concerned with it here.
The Commissioner:
Oh, no.
Mr. Scanlan:
And what your Lordship is attempting to do is to get a satisfactory answer to Question 24: "What was the cause of this disaster and of the loss of life?"
The Commissioner:
What was the effective cause of the disaster.
Mr. Scanlan:
The effective cause, and other matters, that had some relation to the accident, whether as the direct cause or the effective cause. With those directions or with the want of directions with regard to this point and with the presence of the managing owner on board, who knew there was ice ahead, and who had had something to do with the direction of the voyage in the instructions which he gave at Queenstown to the Chief Engineer, he clearly makes himself a responsible party, in the sense in which this Question 24 is put, as well as the Captain, and those who are charged by the duty of their office with the navigation of the ship.
At page 439, Question 18392, Mr. Ismay, describing his interview at Queenstown, says, "The reason why we discussed it at Queenstown was this, that Mr. Bell came into my room; I wanted to know how much coal we had on board the ship, because the ship left after the coal strike was on, and he told me. I then spoke to him about the ship, and I said it is not possible for the ship to arrive in New York on Tuesday. Therefore there is no object in pushing her. We will arrive there at five o'clock on Wednesday morning, and it will be good landing for the passengers in New York, and we shall also be able to economise our coal. We did not want to burn any more coal than we needed." And elsewhere in the evidence, to which I have no doubt your Lordship will be referred, it is clear that Mr. Ismay had the telegram, and it is not clear to my mind from his evidence how, unless he had discussed the navigation of the ship and the meaning of the Marconigram with the Captain or some of the other Officers, he reasoned with himself and came to the conclusion that they would be that night in the proximity of ice shortly after turning the corner.
I do not wish to go further into this matter, because I have no doubt it will form the subject of a part of the address of Mr. Attorney, as a number of his questions have borne on that part of the case. But I must find fault with the attitude of Mr. Ismay in regard to the look-out. It is true that a number of companies are in the same position, so far as regulations are concerned, about going into an ice track as the White Star Company.
The Commissioner:
No, not so far as regulations are concerned, but so far as the absence of regulations is concerned.
Mr. Scanlan:
Yes, that is a much better way of putting it. But it is not the case, my Lord, that they are all as reckless as the White Star people in reference to look-outs. Mr. Ismay says in this part of his evidence that he would not double the look-out; he does not think the look-out should have been doubled.
Continued >
