British Wreck Commissioner's Inquiry

Day 28

Final Arguments, cont.

Mr. Scanlan:
Yes, my Lord, at least.

The Commissioner:
I do not know when you are going to get a drill which would include all these people.

Mr. Scanlan:
In various ways, my Lord. I tried to suggest to the Board of Trade that there should be some method of testing the efficiency of seamen and the efficiency of men in the different grades, and that a certificate of efficiency might be obtained. Your Lordship pointed out to me the undesirability of having anything like Civil Service examination tests, through which the sailors and the firemen and others would have to go.

The Commissioner:
I am afraid you would have very few sailors if you did that.

Mr. Scanlan:
I do not think it would be too much that a man who is qualified as an efficient seaman should be expected to have a knowledge of the handling and the management of boats. This, I think, also would be reasonable in the case of firemen and in the case of stewards. In the questions put to Sir Walter Howell, Sir Alfred Chalmers, Captain Young, and Mr. Clarke I brought out those various points. I think it is unnecessary for me to labour it further.

Now a suggestion has been made - I do not think I shall have to make any further observations upon this branch of the case - that no passenger had a right to dissuade members of the crew from doing their duty - that is, if their boats were not properly filled - from going back to rescue drowning people out of the water, or from going back to stand by at these gangway doors if they had been opened. But in a general way this is the submission I should like to make to your Lordship: If there had been discipline, if there had been in practice a system of training of the men by extensive boat drills and by boat musters, and a standard and test of efficiency in force, then you would have discipline amongst the members of the crew; and through paying some attention to the lifeboats, and some attention to the handling of the boats, the men would know that they had duties imposed upon them, and they would have recognised more than they did a sense of their responsibility.

I could not say anything in justification of the conduct of the Witness Symons, who refused to go back with this boat No. 1, which had only five passengers in it, when he heard the cries of the drowning. But I think the few examples, and they were few, in the case of the "Titanic," of failure to recognise his duty by any member of the crew, would not have occurred if there had been discipline amongst them, and if they had had the training which Captain Young and Captain Clarke think is desirable.

I think I may pass from this branch of the case, my Lord, and I will come to the remaining and the last point that I am to discuss, and that is the Enquiry suggested by Question 26 as to the way in which the Board of Trade have carried out the duties entrusted to them under the Merchant Shipping Act. This Enquiry is very important, and I think its importance is greater in the light of the recommendations that may be made as to the future, than in condemning members of the Board of Trade or the Board of Trade as a whole, so far as the past is concerned.

I feel it is the duty imposed, I think, to some extent by your Lordship on me and on my friend, Mr. Edwards, to be accusers of the Board of Trade, and that the Board of Trade Court, if not accusation, at all events, a searching examination into their methods, in this Enquiry; and this is the feature of the Enquiry which distinguishes this from any ordinary Enquiry held under the Section of the Merchant Shipping Act under which your Lordship is now acting.

In the first place, the Board of Trade, and not its Advisory Committee, and not any outside body, is charged with the duty of making Rules and Regulations with reference to life-saving appliances and securing the safety of persons who travel at sea.

The Commissioner:
Well, you say that, but surely you do not suggest that the Board of Trade ought not to take skilled advice on the subject?

Mr. Scanlan:
No, my Lord; I wanted to guard myself against getting into such a position. But your Lordship warned me that if I enquired into the composition of the Board of Trade, I was in some danger of stumbling on an old joke. That may be, but still the composition of the Board of Trade is a matter which should be above joking, and, I think if your Lordship looks to the failure of the Board of Trade in making efficient regulations under this Section 427, it suggests that there is great need for reform at the Board of Trade. What are the life-saving appliances at the present time? They are according to the Rules which came into force in 1890. We have had the history of those Rules as to life-saving appliances in very great detail, but I think it very easy to analyse this history and to pick out the salient points. In 1890 there was provision for ships of 9,000 tons and upwards, and here is the fact which stares one in the face in reviewing the conduct of the Board of Trade since 1890, that the only additional provision for lifeboats and life-saving appliances made since 1890 is the amendment made in 1894. Now see the importance of it.

The Commissioner:
That is about 10,000 ton ships?

Mr. Scanlan:
Yes. What is that difference? In 1890 the maximum provision for lifeboat accommodation was 5,250 cubic feet; that was, of course, with the three-fourths addition. But that need not disturb the very slight calculation which I am going to make here. Under the new provision, the provision in 1894, they provided for 250 additional cubic feet. Now, what does that mean? It means accommodation for 25 people, or accommodation, if you take the three-fourths additional for, I think, 41.

The Commissioner:
Where do you get the three-fourths additional?

Mr. Scanlan:
The addition of 250, three-fourths.

The Commissioner:
Yes, but what is the Rule or provision with regard to three-fourths' addition?

Mr. Scanlan:
The Rule is contained on page 6 under D. With the three-fourths additional, the Board of Trade provided in the biggest ship for only forty-three people. It comes to this, therefore, that since 1890 although the tonnage of ships has gone up from 9,000 to over 46,000 gross tonnage -

The Commissioner:
Have you taken the trouble to look at the list of boats exceeding 10,000 tons built since 1894?

Mr. Scanlan:
I have gone into that question, my Lord, to some extent.

The Commissioner:
If you look, you will probably be astonished to see how few they are.

Mr. Scanlan:
I see about 1894 you had the "Lucania."

The Commissioner:
Oh, you can find some, and you can find them, I think, going up to 26,000 tons, but I do not think you get them above that.

Mr. Scanlan:
In 1901 there were additions, 20,000 tons, and the "Baltic" in 1904. Then you had the "Lusitania" and the "Mauretania," getting up to 30,000 tons, and during the last couple of years you have had ships like the "Olympic."

The Commissioner:
I think for a considerable time after the Rules of 1894 were promulgated by the Board of Trade, there were not any large number of vessels above 10,000 tons.

Mr. Scanlan:
They had at all events in 1894 the "Lucania," which was built then, that is practically 13,000 tons - 12,952. There has been no addition from 1890 down to the present day.

The Commissioner:
Except the one.

Mr. Scanlan:
Except this one, which is only a provision for 43 people, that is, the biggest ship now has only to provide by the Board of Trade Rules for 43 more people than the biggest ship, which was a comparatively small ship, was required to provide in 1894.

The Commissioner:
Of course it does not follow from that fact that any great mischief has arisen. It is perfectly obvious that if there had been an alteration by the Board of Trade, it would not have provided for anything like the number of lives carried in these big steamers.

Mr. Scanlan:
Yes, my Lord.

The Commissioner:
We know that for good reasons or bad reasons, up to the present time it has not been the practice to carry lifeboats to accommodate everybody on board.

Mr. Scanlan:
No, my Lord.

The Commissioner:
Neither in the British Mercantile Marine nor in the German nor any other. We know that, and therefore if the Board of Trade had extended its Rules, as I daresay they ought to have done, they nevertheless would not have extended them to such an extent as you suggest now they ought to be extended.

Mr. Scanlan:
Quite, my Lord.

The Commissioner:
And I do not suppose they would have been blamed for not doing it.

Mr. Scanlan:
If I may put my point shortly, it is this: That there is surely a failure to recognise growing needs in this body charged with making those regulations in failing to cope with the advance in ships' construction and in resting content in 1911 and 1912 with provisions that might have been thought suitable in 1890.

The Commissioner:
You are so fair, that I scarcely like to say what I am going to say now.

Mr. Scanlan:
Do, my Lord.

The Commissioner:
I do not think you have put it quite fairly, and for this reason. The Board of Trade knew full well as we know, as you know and all of us know, that whatever the Board of Trade Rules were, the shipowners did provide what they considered at all events an ample supply of lifeboats accommodation.

Mr. Scanlan:
And that is one of my quarrels with the Board of Trade, my Lord.

The Commissioner:
Let me see your quarrel? The Board of Trade know that the thing is being done properly, and then you blame them for not making a Rule.

Mr. Scanlan:
No, my Lord. The Board of Trade know that so meagre and insufficient are their own Rules that shipowners voluntarily make provision in excess of those Rules, and this very fact should have convinced them that their Rules needed revision. That is the point.

The Commissioner:
But they do not need revision if there is no occasion for a Rule.

Mr. Scanlan:
If one could conceive that shipowners did spontaneously make adequate provision, then the thing would have been all right in spite of the Board of Trade, but it is not the fact that shipowners made adequate provision. What I maintain is that shipowners made inadequate provision, and further that, though their provision was inadequate, it was not so inadequate as the provision required by the Board of Trade, and consequently in so far as keeping a look-out and keeping abreast of the times is concerned, the Board of Trade is much more culpable than the shipowners.

The Commissioner:
To tell you the truth, Mr. Scanlan, I do not believe any shipowner ever looked at these Rules. I do not believe they ever looked at them. They simply said, "Here is a ship, how many lifeboats ought she to have?" and as they knew perfectly well that the number they were going to supply would far exceed anything that the Board of Trade ever contemplated, they went on.

Mr. Scanlan:
I think they knew that the Board of Trade were not likely to contemplate anything in the way of an increase, and as your Lordship said, when one Witness was in the box, they were hoping that the Board of Trade would do nothing, and certainly they were not disappointed in that hope. I wish to treat this seriously, my Lord. With regard to the lifeboats altogether between the Board of Trade and the shipowners, lifeboats are quite a neglected department in ships, and the reason I suspect is this, that there is no money in lifeboats. Every other department of a ship has seen improvements.

The Commissioner:
I do not agree with you there.

Mr. Scanlan:
Very well, my Lord.

The Commissioner:
And I will tell you why. There is nothing so detrimental to the business of a shipowner, a passenger carrying shipowner, as a loss. It does his business an enormous amount of harm, and he incurs the greatest money loss of all. I am talking of the money loss. And therefore you must not say they neglect these provisions out of parsimony. They do not.

Mr. Scanlan:
I may say a shipowner does not get an increase in his freight or in his passage money in proportion to the adequacy of the lifeboat provision.

The Commissioner:
I do not agree with you there either. Everything that adds to the expense of saving the ship increases the cost of the passenger's ticket.

Mr. Scanlan:
It is the case, although there is a certain excess of provision over the requirements of the Board of Trade, that relatively to the total number of passengers carried, there is a most marked disparity between the provision made and the provision that would be necessary if a catastrophe occurred.

The Commissioner:
Yes, that is quite true, but you will not overlook the fact that shipowners have been struggling for a very long time past to make a ship its own lifeboat.

Mr. Scanlan:
Yes, my Lord, I was coming to that.

The Commissioner:
Their great object is, and their great object ought to be, to make a ship so safe that lifeboats are not necessary?

Mr. Scanlan:
Yes, my Lord.

The Commissioner:
That ought to be the great object.

Mr. Scanlan:
I think my friend Sir Robert Finlay recalled a poet who sang of the "oarless sea" - I remember coming on that passage in reading the evidence yesterday - and that undoubtedly must have been the dream of shipowners. Well, it is a dream, my Lord. Unless you are dealing with "painted ships upon a painted ocean," I think it is necessary to consider the two things.

Besides if the owners have been making their ships less sinkable, increasing their flotability, why could they not at the same time contemporaneously have gone on increasing the excellence of their ships by providing better lifeboat accommodation and life-saving apparatus? And that they have not done, and that the Board of Trade have not done. I want to bring this thing home to the Board of Trade, my Lord. We are told by Sir Walter Howell that after 1894 the only time that the conscience of the Board of Trade was pricked was in 1904, and your Lordship asked him - I think this is quite fair to him: I am getting through this part of the case as quickly as I can - what did he do then, and this is what he did: He consulted his Professional Adviser, that was Sir Alfred Chalmers, and then we had to wait till Sir Alfred Chalmers came to find out why nothing was done, and we certainly got an explanation from him. I think he is the personification of the Board of Trade in a more direct sense than any of the other Witnesses. You know what he said, my Lord?

The Commissioner:
Well, you tell me.

Mr. Scanlan:
He was asked, "Why did not you increase the scale of lifeboat accommodation?" and he says, "I did not think it was necessary in 1894."

The Commissioner:
Do you mean 1894 or 1904?

Mr. Scanlan:
1904; and then he is taken a step further, and he is reminded that since then the "Titanic" has gone down, and he is asked even now in the light of this calamity, would he increase the lifeboat accommodation?

The Commissioner:
I think you asked him that question.

Mr. Scanlan:
Well, some of us did.

The Commissioner:
And you asked him in an irritating way.

Mr. Scanlan:
Some people who are less irritating than I was - and I am sure if I have been unwittingly irritating, Sir Alfred Chalmers and other gentlemen from the Board of Trade will overlook it. But it is not through irritation that a man who occupied the responsible position of head of the Board of Trade would say that his deliberate conviction, even after the "Titanic" was lost, is that the boat scale of 1894 is still to be regarded as sufficient.

The Commissioner:
You must not dwell too much upon the "Titanic," because do not forget that she only utilised two-thirds of her boat accommodation.

Mr. Scanlan:
I have given you the best explanation I can.

The Commissioner:
Yes, and it is not quite an explanation that I understand so far. I do not want you to go back on it.

Mr. Scanlan:
Your Lordship will at all events be spared that. Still, after the "Titanic" disaster great preparations are being made at the present time, and naturally what has affected other countries must affect even more intimately this country, to which the "Titanic" belonged. I do not say that it is any reflection that it is only now that great exertions are being made. But if this was the disposition of the principal man in the Board of Trade, I think it becomes easy to understand how it is that we have not had drastic alterations in the provision for life-saving appliances.

I must say that the successor to Sir Alfred Chalmers, Captain Young, appears to me, if I may respectfully say so -

The Commissioner:
My recollection is that he did not agree with all that Sir Alfred Chalmers did.

Mr. Scanlan:
No, my Lord; it occurred to me that his views were not so conservative, and that he was inclined to advance.

The Commissioner:
And, therefore, you are entitled to be a little more hopeful now.

Mr. Scanlan:
Yes, because he is a bit more liberal. But if your Lordship reads the references of the Board of Trade to their principal Surveyors, when they were asking for information, you will find this conservative instinct shown. At page 18 and page 22 of this paper which your Lordship has seen, which was given to us at the last sitting, you will see them.

The Commissioner:
What is it called?

Mr. Scanlan:
It is "Memorandum on the Statutory Requirements as to Life-Saving Appliances." It has a history, my Lord. At page 18 the Board of Trade are writing a confidential letter to their Principal Officers in London, Liverpool, and Glasgow for advice and guidance as to life-saving appliances, and here I find them saying: "It is not intended that the boat capacity on vessels included in the extension should necessarily increase in a regular proportion according to the increase in tonnage."

The Commissioner:
You will observe that the word "necessarily" is in italics.

Mr. Scanlan:
Yes, my Lord, I do not think the Board of Trade should be blamed less or more on that account.

The Commissioner:
No, but it gives a meaning to the sentence.

Mr. Scanlan:
At page 22, in the reference to the Advisory Committee they say, "It appears to the Board that the number of boats and the boat capacity need not necessarily increase in a regular proportion according to the increase in tonnage, and that due regard should be paid to what is reasonable and practicable in passenger steamers exceeding 10,000 tons." They evidently did not expect any alarming increase in the boatage provisions.

The Commissioner:
You do not want an alarming increase, do you?

Mr. Scanlan:
No, I want a considerable increase.

The Commissioner:
Yes, but not alarming.

Mr. Scanlan:
No, that I agree, my Lord. Now I want to call your Lordship's attention to this important fact. The Board of Trade asked advice, and they got it, but they did not act upon it. The Board of Trade asked the advice of their Principal Officers and each Officer has given a scale. The first is Captain Young. I will only give one figure from each scale. Captain Young, at page 14, for a vessel of 45,000 to 50,000 tons would have provided for 19,075 cubic feet of lifeboats. That is accommodation for 1,907 persons - probably more, because the divisor of ten is applicable to some boats and the divisor of eight to others, but at least 1,907 persons. Then Mr. Park, on page 16, would have provided for 16,625, that is for 1,662 persons. Then there is Mr. Harris, on page 17, who would have provided for 16,975 cubic feet - 1,697 persons.

Then, my Lord - and this is very significant - you have the advice from the Principal Ship Surveyor at the Board of Trade, the man who is at their elbow, and from whom they could have got advice at any moment.

The Commissioner:
That is Mr. Archer.

Mr. Scanlan:
Yes, who gave his evidence here and what he recommended is a provision of 24,937 cubic feet. Your Lordship will see that if they had taken the advice of Mr. Archer, their Principal Ship Surveyor - they got all those reports early in 1911, I think in February - they would have provided in the case of the "Titanic" for 2,493 persons. But take any of the Surveyors; if they had taken any of this advice asked for, they would have had a very considerable increase in lifeboat accommodation. Take their present requirements according to their own scale of 5,500 and add on the three quarters and you get 9,500 - provision for 950 people. Almost the lowest figure from any of their advisers would have been close on double that.

Then, my Lord, they had the Advisory Committee. I cannot venture to offer any compliments to the Advisory Committee, although they included two of my own clients. This great matter occupied their attention for two forenoons. They made a recommendation which you will see on page 24, and if the Advisory Committee's recommendation had been adopted, you would have had 8,300 cubic feet, to which of course the three quarters would have been added. This would have given you 14,525 cubic feet, and that is accommodation for more than 1,452 people. And they had this in July, 1911. Contrast even that figure, the provision for 1,452 people, with their requirements of 950 -

The Commissioner:
Do not keep telling me about that; I know it so well.

Mr. Scanlan:
It is altogether a painful subject.

The Commissioner:
No, but it is not very relevant in my opinion.

Mr. Scanlan:
I am sorry if your Lordship thinks so. Here is my submission on those points, my Lord. If either the advice of the Advisory Committee or the advice of their own Officers had been taken and acted upon, the "Titanic" would not have been allowed to proceed on her voyage with accommodation for just over 1,100 people, but she would have had considerably more. Therefore, Sir Norman Hill was right to this extent when he stated that if the provisions of the Advisory Committee had been carried out, there would have been at least fifty percent of addition to the life-saving appliances. I do not see any justification for this.

One justification was offered to your Lordship, and it was this: "Oh, in the interval after getting this report, we were considering the question of boats." This is the suggestion made by Captain Young. You will remember at the close of his evidence he made a little speech or explanation in which he took the whole blame for the Department on himself. But in one part of his evidence the only explanation he gave was "I was considering the question of boats - that there should be some different proportion between the depth and the breadth of lifeboats."

Your Lordship asked him: Had he any fault to find with the lifeboats provided by Harland and Wolff, and did those come into question at all? And he answered, "No, those did not come into question."

Then why should those be a means of delaying the provision of life-saving appliances, seeing that the Board of Trade were clearing at Belfast and at Southampton one of the biggest passenger ships ever launched, and ever cleared by the Board of Trade? I am afraid, my Lord, that this requires more justification than has been suggested on behalf of the Board of Trade in the course of this Enquiry.

Well now, in a general way we are told, "Oh, when we considered this matter we always thought of suitability, we always thought of watertight compartments and watertight bulkheads." I will say very little about that, but I must make this observation. We have it in evidence, and it is the fact, that the only statutory provision with reference to bulkheads is that contained in Rule 12 on page 16 of these Rules under the Life-Saving Appliances Act. To my mind a very material distinction exists between this statutory provision and Instructions to the Surveyors in reference to bulkheads, which, of course, is not statutory, and which is constantly being departed from, and which was departed from repeatedly in the case of the "Titanic." Nothing is laid down hard-and-fast, and if the builders of a ship can satisfy the Superintending Officer that although what they are doing is not just exactly what the Instructions recommend, still it is as good, it is allowed to pass. But this is the one and only statutory provision with regard to watertight bulkheads. And what do we find in the case of the "Titanic" so far as this one statutory provision is concerned? We find that it was not complied with in the case of the "Titanic." And if your Lordship will look at the Report and recommendation of the Principal Ship Surveyor, Mr. Archer, you will see he refers to this at page 17.

The Commissioner:
In how many ships is it complied with?

Mr. Scanlan:
The number is given here in Sir Walter Howell's evidence. I think he said 150, or some big number, had applied, and the number which had complied with the requirements and had qualified for exemption was considerably smaller.

The Commissioner:
About four a year, I think.

Mr. Scanlan:
Five a year, it used to be, and now it comes down to four a year.

The Commissioner:
Sixty-nine, I am told.

Mr. Scanlan:
That is the figure I had in mind, my Lord. Here is what Mr. Archer says about this Rule in his Report at page 17 of that paper to which I referred, your Lordship: "Owing, no doubt, to the very small reduction of life-saving appliances at present sanctioned by this Rule, none of the large vessels recently constructed have complied with the recommendations of the Bulkhead Committee, although they are thought to be most reasonable in the case of vessels which have boat capacity for only a proportion of the persons carried." He is the Principal Ship Surveyor.

The Board of Trade have two standards of watertight bulkheads; one is a fixed standard, and the other is not. One is a higher standard, that is the one referred to in Rule 12, the other is a lower standard.

The Commissioner:
Where is that standard to be found?

Mr. Scanlan:
It is No. 16, on page 8 of the "Regulations and Suggestions as to the Survey." Your Lordship has been frequently referred to this provision. It is the provision which deals with the four watertight compartments. There is no justification for having two standards of sufficiency of watertight bulkheads. To comply with the lower standard will give you a certificate of clearance, and will allow you to carry passengers and emigrants. But then there is a higher standard, and if you comply with it, it will allow you to take your ship away with a smaller number of lifeboats.

The Commissioner:
That is a question of policy.

Mr. Scanlan:
That is true.

The Commissioner:
Whether it is good policy or not I do not propose to say, but the policy is this: Make your ship a safer ship, more likely to float than it would otherwise be, and then we will not require you to provide such great lifeboat accommodation. It is apparently to encourage them to make their ships unsinkable.

Mr. Scanlan:
What kind of inducement is this to shipowners and shipbuilders to make the ships unsinkable? They get a certificate of clearance if they conform to the lower standard, which is no standard at all, but if they conform to the higher standard then what happens? Instead of carrying 9,500 cubic feet of lifeboat accommodation, they can carry 7,000 odd. I do not see, my Lord, that it is reasonable or justifiable to set up those two standards. There should be a standard of safety and stability and seaworthiness, and it should be the higher standard, and the higher standard should be insisted upon before a ship is cleared and passed by the Surveyors and the authorities of the Board of Trade. That, in a word, is the submission I want to make on this point.

But there is something I should add. This Rule 12, the only statutory Rule, has been regarded for a long time as an obsolete Rule. This suggestion is put by the learned Attorney-General to Sir Walter Howell: "Is it an obsolete Rule?" and he admits it is an obsolete Rule. If the justification for not ordering sufficient lifeboats is "We looked after the safety of ships and their passengers in another way; we made good Rules as to watertight bulkheads," then I am forced to make this answer: It cannot be said that the Board of Trade have made such provision. They have been content with this one statutory provision made in 1890, because, I take it, from the evidence, that it was in operation before Sir Edward Harland's Committee made its Report. And it is now obsolete; it has been obsolete for many years. How does that justify the conduct of the Board of Trade in failing to provide lifeboats for all? They have not renewed that provision; they have not revised it or reviewed it; they have allowed the standard for the sufficiency of bulkheads to become obsolete, and, side by side with that, they have also failed to make adequate provision for life-saving appliances.

Your Lordship has had your attention directed to what was done in foreign countries. Take the United States. I had an opportunity of referring your Lordship to the present provisions in the United States. I think they are reasonable, and I am going to ask your Lordship to recommend them as the result of this Enquiry to the Board of Trade, that is, to provide lifeboats, or life-saving apparatus, for all persons carried on board those ships, passengers and crew.

The Commissioner:
I suppose we are not to do that if we are satisfied that by doing it a greater danger will be created than will be averted.

Mr. Scanlan:
I sincerely hope your Lordship will not find it necessary to take that view.

The Commissioner:
I can contemplate what Sir Norman Hill told us, that you may get the ship into such a condition of congestion with lifeboats as to make it more dangerous than if there were no lifeboats at all.

Mr. Scanlan:
I am very indisposed to take the view of Sir Norman Hill, who, for all that he has said about being an expert, is merely a lawyer.

The Commissioner:
What do you say? Merely a lawyer?

Mr. Scanlan:
Insofar as the requisite knowledge to guide your Lordship in these matters is concerned, I ask your Lordship not to be, shall I say, led by lawyers in advising you as to what is practicable and safe to carry in the way of lifeboat accommodation. I would much rather impress upon your Lordship the view of Mr. Wilding, or the view of Mr. Sanderson, or the views of any of the other real experts we have had, especially the views of Mr. Carlisle, than the view given by Sir Norman Hill. What does Sir Norman Hill know in comparison with Mr. Wilding about the way in which the boat deck space on a ship like the "Titanic" could be utilised? Mr. Wilding said, "There is nothing in the engineering sense impracticable in putting on the boat deck of a ship like the 'Titanic' sufficient lifeboats for all carried - even for 3,500." I got the same statement from Mr. Archer, of the Board of Trade, and you have had a chorus of real experts whose testimony is all to that effect, and in the face of such evidence as that I should hope your Lordship would not weaken the stringency of the provisions to be recommended on account of what may be said by this distinguished solicitor, who is also an expert when he goes to the Board of Trade.

I was directing your Lordship's attention to the provisions of other countries, and this is the last thing I have to say. Before the disaster took place, your Lordship will see on page 38 of this Memorandum the statutory requirements of America. For a ship of the size of the "Titanic" you will see that they provide 24,345 cubic feet. That is in the last column. That is what the United States had provided before; and you see how logical is the arrangement in that Table. There is a graduated increase in proportion to tonnage, and, of course, if tonnage is to be recognised as the basis for providing lifeboats, then the number of lifeboats and their extent would go on progressively with the tonnage, and that is what they have been doing in the United States.

Then the German requirements show 42,656 cubic feet.

The Commissioner:
I have forgotten the exact tonnage of the "Titanic": was it more than 46,500 or less?

Mr. Scanlan:
It was 46,328.

The Commissioner:
It is under 46,500, so we must take from 45,000 to 46,500.

Mr. Scanlan:
Yes.

The Commissioner:
45,942 to 49,476 tons, the quantity to be provided is 21,328 cubic feet; is not that right?

Mr. Scanlan:
I think that is part of it. You also have another 21,328. I think that refers to boats of another description, and then you get the sum of the two, namely, 42,636.

The Commissioner:
The total number of passengers and crew provided for would be 4,265; is that right?

Mr. Scanlan:
Yes.

The Commissioner:
Then in Germany there is an exemption for efficient bulkheads.

Mr. Scanlan:
Yes.

The Commissioner:
They seem to recognise the same principle that the Board of Trade recognise by Rule 12.

Mr. Scanlan:
I do not know that we are in a position with the evidence given here to say exactly what they do.

The Commissioner:
No, not exactly.

Mr. Scanlan:
What is important on this is this consideration; the shipping of this country is greater than that of those other countries and so far as lifeboat accommodation is concerned, we have been lamentably behind, and therefore I say, even on a comparison with other countries, the Board of Trade stands condemned for negligence in exercising its duty under the Merchant Shipping Acts.

And now additional provisions are being made, and will be made, and I submit that what should be asked and insisted on is adequate lifeboat accommodation, whether in boats or rafts, and life-saving apparatus for every person carried. I say it is possible to do it, and from the evidence of the Board of Trade, we may take it that shipowners have themselves since the loss of the "Titanic," recognised this, because they have offered to the Board of Trade to provide their ships with lifeboats for all on board.

The Commissioner:
Have you contemplated this, that if the number taken away from the "Titanic" in the lifeboats is to be taken, if the amount of the lifeboat capacity utilised, is to be taken, as what can be utilised in circumstances such as happened on board the "Titanic," you would require a very much larger lifeboat accommodation than would accommodate the number of persons on board. Do you follow what I mean?

Mr. Scanlan:
I follow it, my Lord. I do not see that it can be any justification for the disparity between the boat capacity which the "Titanic" had and the number of people actually saved. I am afraid that is to be attributed to lack of discipline.

The Commissioner:
If it is not to be attributed to lack of discipline, if in the hurry of two or three hours you cannot fill your lifeboats, if you cannot do that, then I do not know what you are to do. If they did their best to fill the boats, then the "Titanic" had more boat accommodation than she needed.

Mr. Scanlan:
I fail to see how she can be said to have had more boat accommodation than she needed; she was sinking, and she needed boats for everybody.

The Commissioner:
You do not follow what I mean. If they did all that could be done to get the people into lifeboats - of course, you say they did not, and I understand that argument very well - but if they did then the truth is she had more accommodation than she needed.

Mr. Scanlan:
I am afraid that the failure to load those boats to their full capacity must be attributed to the ignorance of the Officers and crew, and the want of discipline.

The Commissioner:
I have heard you on that point, and there is a good deal to be said for it.

Mr. Scanlan:
And if there follows from this Enquiry not only a provision for lifeboats for all on such a ship as this, but for sufficient crew to man them, and sufficient boat drills with a test of efficiency, I am sure that such a thing could not be repeated; I mean that you could not have the amount of ignorance and indiscipline which characterised this catastrophe. That is my submission to your Lordship on this point.

I am told that this is the proper time to mention the question of costs.

The Commissioner:
That is always a very important question, but you need not do more than mention it now. I shall deal with the question of costs when the whole thing finishes, and then I shall deal with all the question of costs together.

Mr. Scanlan:
Very well, my Lord.

The Commissioner:
I thank you very much for the help you have given me; it has been valuable.