British Wreck Commissioner's Inquiry
Day 29
Final Arguments
Mr. Roche:
My Lord, my friend Mr. Edwards does not desire to address your Lordship at this moment, and with your Lordship's permission I will now make the few remarks which I desire to make.
The Commissioner:
If you please.
Mr. Roche:
I represent the Marine Engineers' Association, an association consisting of a large number of certificated engineers. A large number of their members unfortunately were drowned in this casualty. Your Lordship knows also that all the engineers in this case were drowned, and there is a question your Lordship will see which at any rate raises this matter, namely, the latter part of Question 21. The first part relates to the passengers; the latter part says: "What was the number of the crew, discriminating their ratings and sex, that were saved? What is the proportion which each of these numbers bears to the corresponding total number on board immediately before the casualty? What reason is there for the disproportion, if any?
With regard to the engineers, unfortunately the answer of fact is simply that 100 percent were drowned. I shall have a word or two, and that is the main point on which I wish to address your Lordship, as to whether any answer is possible or any recommendation is possible in connection with the last sentence: "What reason is there for the disproportion, if any?" But before I deal with that, which is the main point I wish to deal with, it is fairly obvious that in this state of circumstances, joined with the fact, which has, unfortunately, become almost common knowledge, that the disproportion of the loss of engineers in these cases is not uncommon - indeed, is rather the Rule than the exception - it is obvious, I say, that although all persons that go down to the sea in ships are interested in the safety of ships, probably the engineers, having regard to this state of facts are as much, if not more, interested than anyone else. That, my Lord, shall be my excuse for saying a very few words on one or two other parts of the case to which those who instruct me - who, of course, are versed in these matters - have given their best consideration and as to which they have certain conclusions or ideas which they desire to submit to your Lordship.
The first matter I shall deal with is the question of speed. I took the opportunity when Mr. Sanderson was in the box to ask him a few questions, and drew a very clear distinction between what was negligent at the time and what will be proper after this event. I know that is a distinction which is very present to your Lordship's mind. It is perfectly true to say that what is being done now either in regard to boats, or speed, or track, or anything else, is no evidence at all that what was done before was negligent, but it may be evidence of considerable weight as to what is possible now, and as to what is proper now.
With regard to this question of speed, the most obvious truism is that, if possible, you want to keep your ships out of collision. In the circumstances which prevailed in this case, although there is a great body of evidence with regard to the usual practice of navigators which might, and may, render it very difficult for your Lordship - even if it is desirable - to say that anyone was negligent, yet I desire to submit that in such circumstances a reduction of speed from that which was employed upon this occasion is desirable.
I thought the question of the turning circle was material, and your Lordship has had that put before you. I have not seen the plans, but they are here, and I understand from Mr. Wilding the effect is this - that he has got the turning circle at what is roughly 22 knots; he has a turning circle at what is, broadly speaking, 11 knots - that is half the speed - more than half the speed of this vessel - and he tells me, and I have no doubt it is accurate, that whereas in 37 seconds you turn two points at the higher speed, in 74 seconds at the lower speed you will not turn very much more than the two points; that is to say, the turning circle is about the same at the two speeds, but that at the slower speed it takes double as long as at the other. Therefore, you do not by decreasing your speed affect very much your power of averting that which it is your object to avert by your action. I accept that and start with that.
But the proposition I desire to put before your Lordship is this, that nevertheless the reduction of speed is important, nay, essential for two reasons: in the first place, what you have to rely on under those circumstances is mainly the reversing of your engines, and at the slower speed you give your reversed engines a chance; at the higher speed in the distance at which this object was seen and at which such objects may be seen in future, your reversed engines have little or no chance at all. In the first place, therefore, you give double the opportunity to your reversed engines. For example, supposing your Lordship found this object was seen at rather over a quarter of a mile; that happens to coincide with the distance in which this ship could alter two points at the speed she was going, that is, a distance of about 1,200 or 1,300 feet, Mr. Wilding said. Now, in that distance, 1,200 feet, or a quarter of a mile to travel, it is obvious that at the full speed the reversed engines, by the time the matter is communicated to the bridge, will not have any very great effect; but, still, in this case, in spite of that fact, whether by the reversing of the engines or by the pulling up consequent on the collision, this vessel was pulled up within some not very great distance of the berg, because it was seen and described to your Lordship after the event as being within sight and observation. That shows, I submit to your Lordship, that if the speed is half and the time, therefore, is doubled, although the distance at which the object is seen ex hypothesi will not be greater - it will be a quarter of a mile or whatever the distance is - the time which it takes to cover that distance, instead of being 37 seconds, is 74 seconds, or a minute and a quarter. In that time the reversed engines (your Lordship will be advised about this) will have a very much greater opportunity of doing their work and bringing the ship up.
The Commissioner:
Would the reversing of the engines when the vessel was going at 11 knots enable them to steer it as quickly as if they were going at the greater speed?
Mr. Roche:
I have not had an opportunity of considering this minutely, but I understand that the result is the same under all conditions, only it takes double the time. Your Lordship will be advised about that. But I suppose if you reverse one engine and keep the other ahead the conditions would be the same as if the speed were greater; it would be proportionately the same, only it would take double as long. We have no evidence to the contrary, and I do not know that the reduction of the speed would cause any difference in the steering of the ship or would cause the reversing to have any other influence at the slower speed than it would have at the higher speed. I do not know of any such evidence, and I do not know of any reason why it should be so.
The Commissioner:
I suppose the vessel would answer her helm quicker if she was going at the higher speed.
Mr. Roche:
That is the proposition which I started upon - she would answer much quicker: she would take double the time at the lower speed according to the relative speeds I am taking, and, therefore, she would alter just as much in the 74 seconds at the slower speed as she would in the 37 seconds at the higher speed. It might be a little bit more; your Lordship will be advised about that, but I am assuming against my argument that her helm would not alter her bearing and position - her heading - any more in the 74 seconds with the slower speed than it would in the 37 seconds with the higher speed. I say the conditions as regards the alteration with regard to the object would be identical, but the advantage of giving the opportunity to her reversed engines would be exactly double.
The Commissioner:
Would the result be any more than this, that the impact would not be nearly so great?
Mr. Roche:
I was coming to that. In the first place you should have no impact at all; and the second point I was coming to is that the impact would in any case be very much less. As your Lordship knows, it is a mechanical proposition: the force of the impact expressed in terms of mechanical energy is the product of the speed multiplied by the weight. Supposing this vessel, at 22 knots, which we are assuming is the higher speed, and the 11 knots at the half speed, ran without any alteration against this berg, at the 22 knots force the impact would be exactly double the force of the impact at the 11 knots; in one case it would be 50,000 tons, or whatever it was, multiplied by the 22, and in the other case the 50,000 tons multiplied by the 11.
But it goes further than that, because it is so much easier to check the way when you have 11 knots to start from than it is when you have 22 knots as the initial speed. That is why I called attention to the reversing of the engines at first. Instead of a reduction, say, from 22 knots to 15, which might be effected by the reversing at the higher speed, you might very well have, and I submit you would have (it is a matter your Lordship will be advised about) a reduction from 11 knots to only two or three knots if you have the lower speed at which you start the reversing of your engines. What the result of that would have been in this case is almost incalculable and it is difficult to say. But if, as we believe and are told, the fatality of these wounds was that they extended so far aft, then if the initial velocity had been less owing to the reversing of the engines and the natural checking which comes from the actual shock itself, the great probability is that the aftermost wounds of the ship would never have been inflicted at all, because the ship would never have arrived in contact with the iceberg at that point. That, I think, illustrates and brings home the point I want to make as to the very great importance in the light of events as we now know them, of some precautions being taken to very much reduce the speed when the circumstances are at all similar with regard to the vicinity of ice to the circumstances which prevailed in this case.
I only wanted to say one word about the lookout. I ventured to suggest to Mr. Lightoller - and I see Sir Ernest Shackleton adopted the same view, in his evidence to your Lordship - that doubling look-outs was not very advantageous; that it might only result in dividing the responsibility, and the more men you have looking out at any one time the less may any one man look-out. I also ventured to suggest to Mr. Lightoller - and Sir Ernest Shackleton rather seems to take the same view - that where you get men looking out for this sort of object you may find a very great eye strain. Of course, looking for lights which present themselves to the vision automatically is a very different operation from peering into the gloom to pick up some unlighted object, and if an alteration is to be made in the matter of lookouts, those who instruct me desire to submit to your Lordship the consideration whether more frequent relief under these circumstances of lookouts is not an object which is more desirable. That is all I desire to say about the matter before the collision.
I desire, then, to say a word or two about the question of boats. If your vessel is in collision the next important thing, it is admitted on all hands, must be to keep her afloat if you can. That matter has been referred to a Committee, and one cannot but express the hope that the resources of engineering and shipbuilding science are not exhausted, and that they can come to some conclusions which will enable these very large vessels to be kept afloat for a longer time than the "Titanic" was kept afloat, even if they do not keep them afloat altogether. That is, of course, without saying one word as to the efficiency of the structure of the "Titanic," in the light of engineering and shipbuilding science as it was known at the time she was built. We do not desire to say one word and could not say one word against the perfection of her building and equipment at the time when she was built.
But the question of boats, I submit, stands on rather a different footing. If you cannot keep your vessel afloat you must have efficient boats, and one cannot overlook the fact that even if the vessel can be kept afloat there may be circumstances, such as fire, which may arise on board the ship which will render the use of boats not only expedient, but absolutely necessary. With regard to that we do desire to submit to your Lordship that an equipment of boats of this proportion that prevailed on the "Titanic" to the number actually carried is not sufficient. Whether it was proper in the past I desire to say very little. It is obvious that the shipowners, from what Mr. Sanderson said - it occurred in Mr. Sanderson's evidence and in Mr. Ismay's evidence in New York in a passage that was read, and in Captain Bartlett's, the superintendent, evidence - did rely very much on the Board of Trade, plus the fact that they exceeded the Board of Trade Regulations. They all answered to that effect. We only desire to submit with regard to that that if you have a low official standard you will automatically tend to lower the actual standard, and that it is better that the Board of Trade should have no standard at all than so low a standard.
The Commissioner:
Did Mr. Ismay or Mr. Sanderson say that they relied upon the Board of Trade scale?
Mr. Roche:
Yes, my Lord.
The Commissioner:
In point of fact, they did not.
Mr. Roche:
Not that they limited themselves to it, but Mr. Sanderson said this at page 482. That page also contains Mr. Ismay's answer in New York to the question which was put to him. When I say they relied on it, I do not mean that they limited themselves to it, but they took it as their starting-point.
The Commissioner:
I wish to see what they said.
Mr. Roche:
It begins at Question 19377. My friend Mr. Scanlan is examining Mr. Sanderson. He said: "I would like to direct your attention to the evidence given on this point by Mr. Ismay in the American Enquiry. It is right I should say that this was not put to Mr. Ismay here in the witness-box, but it is from the Official Report of the evidence. If your Lordship thinks it right, I will suggest to you the question I propose to put. (The Attorney-General.) What are you reading from? (Mr. Scanlan.) I am reading from the Report of Tuesday, the 30th April. (The Commissioner.) What is the question? (Mr. Scanlan.) Mr. Ismay is asked here, 'How does it happen that the "Titanic" had but 20 lifeboats?' (Sir Robert Finlay.) What page are you referring to? (Mr. Scanlan.) Page 925. "How does it happen that the "Titanic" had but 20 lifeboats, including lifeboats, emergency boats, and collapsible boats? (Mr. Ismay.) That was a matter for the builders, Sir, and I presume that they were fulfilling all the requirements of the Board of Trade." (The Commissioner.) That is quite right. (Mr. Scanlan.) That is what I put to you, Mr. Sanderson? - (A.) I think I have answered very much on the same lines. (Q.) That it was left, in the first instance, to them? - (A.) Yes; that it was left, in the first instance, to them. They would submit a profile plan of the ship showing the boating arrangement to us, and they would undoubtedly say that it complied with the Board of Trade requirements, and as the result of this conversation which I am giving, referring to the additional boats with which she was supplied were put on, but as to what we said or what Lord Pirrie said on that particular occasion, I cannot say." Captain Bartlett, the marine superintendent, said substantially the same thing.
The Commissioner:
Let me see that.
Mr. Roche:
It is at page 563, an answer to Question 21622. Apparently the Witness had been asked matters which were not in his proof, and there was a little discussion about his proof. His proof was handed up to your Lordship. Your Lordship will see about 12 lines down, this is the passage which occurs in his proof. Your Lordship says: "I will read it: 'With regard to the number of boats on the "Titanic" we are guided to a large extent by the Board of Trade requirements, but, in fact, provide a larger boat capacity than the Rules call for.'" That is my reason for saying that the Board of Trade scale it the foundation. The good shipowner may exceed it and may take pride in doing so, but the probability is he will not largely exceed it, and, therefore, if you have a low Board of Trade scale it will have a very depressing effect on the amount and extent to which boats will be provided. I could not help being struck by a matter which has been very much in your Lordship's mind in the course of this Enquiry: What is the good of having a larger number of boats, assuming they are possible, if they cannot be got away? With regard to the possibility of putting them on board, of course, the evidence of what the German Lines have done and what the "Olympic" has done with regard to the possibility of providing the boats is very potent and forcible evidence, and I cannot improve upon it by talking about it. But I could not help observing that what was very much in your Lordship's mind was, what is the good of having more boats if you cannot get them away from the ship, if time does not allow and circumstances do not allow your getting away more than were got away on this occasion or even as many as on this occasion.
I want to submit a consideration to your Lordship with regard to that, which may sound a paradox, but, nevertheless, I think it is true, and that is this, that it was the very deficiency of boats, the very disparity between the number and the number of people that had to go into them that caused the delay in this case, and that is bound to cause a delay. That the delay was not a delay in mechanically lowering the boats in most instances is clear - there were one or two instances in which falls caught, and so forth - but in the majority of cases the boats seem to have gone perfectly smoothly into the water, and your Lordship will be advised as to how much time is necessary to take off the covers of the boats and to actually lower them into the water. I think your Lordship will find that it is comparatively short. The delay that took place was a natural delay, because of the difficulty of selecting your passengers and getting them into the boats in a selected condition - a difficulty which is naturally obvious when you are trying to get wives away from husbands.
The Commissioner:
If there had been a sufficient number of boats to accommodate all the passengers, do you suggest that the order would not have been given: "Women and children first"?
Mr. Roche:
My Lord, not to the same extent. There might have been attempt at selection, but probably not for this reason. At the time when they started putting the people into the boats, at any rate; they did not think, apparently, that the disaster was very imminent. They did not put anyone in for half-an-hour. Mr. Lightoller says he did not get the order to clear away the boats for some half-an-hour afterwards. I think in that state of mind and in that condition of things they would have let people go in a natural order; at any rate, they would have let families go together. As to unaccompanied women, there might have been a desire to put them into the boats first, but after that, at all events, the more normal process would have been going forward of the families going together, the women being attended and assisted by their friends, those whom they knew, and there would not have been the great difficulty of the stewards having to go down two or three times. Your Lordship had evidence particularly of the third class stewards having to go down two or three times, with the boats waiting, trying to urge people into the boats, and, on the other hand, keeping back other people who were anxious to go. You got all the conditions which were unfavourable to a speedy filling of the boats and none of the conditions which are favourable to a speedy filling of the boats.
I should be sorry if it were thought that anything I was saying was intended to reflect on the propriety of the order which was given in this case of "Women and children first." One is glad to think it was given and that it was adopted and followed, and even glad to think, out of respect for human nature, that it probably led to many of these boats going away half filled, because men would not go into them when they knew that the standing order was "Women and children first." That is a reason, I submit, which accounts not merely for the delay in sending away the boats, but for the boats being only partly filled.
The Commissioner:
I have difficulty in accepting that. I cannot understand why a boat should be sent away half full.
Mr. Roche:
If a boat had been waiting for some time, and they desired to get another boat out, it is of course, easy to lower it down and trust to it being filled from elsewhere. That the people who actually lowered away thought that boat was going to leave the ship's side empty one very much doubts, but they thought it had been waiting there long enough and that some had better get into it from ladders down below.
The Commissioner:
I can understand that. I can understand the boats being filled only half full or a third full if there was an idea that the boat might be filled later on. That I can well understand.
Mr. Roche:
There is ample evidence to substantiate this proposition.
The Commissioner:
There is some evidence.
Mr. Roche:
That at all times there were men about the decks there does not seem to be any doubt, and that the boats were not filled because the women and children were not available.
The Commissioner:
I think that is true; that seems to be a fact.
Mr. Roche:
It would have been an excuse for the boats having left the ship half filled, but I say the reason they were not filled at the ship's rail was because the women and children were not ready; and it does account for the boats not being filled then and the disproportion of boats to the number of people accounts for the slowness with which they were lowered.
With regard to the mechanical lowering of the boats your Lordship will not forget that in many cases there is evidence that the boat was lowered very quickly. One starboard boat was away, Mr. Boxhall said, almost before he expected it, while he was on the bridge letting off rockets. Other falls and davits lowered their own wooden boats and one, if not two, collapsibles, I think your Lordship will find. I think your Lordship will be advised and will be of opinion, having read the evidence, that mechanically a considerably larger number of boats could have been got out of this ship at the time in question had they been available, but that that delay was a personal and a human delay.
The Commissioner:
What time did the last boat leave the vessel?
Mr. Roche:
The last boat left the vessel about half-an-hour before the ship sank.
The Commissioner:
The steamer was still in such a position as to have enabled them to lower more boats if more boats had been there?
Mr. Roche:
Except the collapsibles.
The Commissioner:
There was one collapsible boat, I know, but I am thinking rather of the boats under davits. The ship was still in a condition to have launched or lowered from the davits boats if they had been there to launch?
Mr. Roche:
Particularly is that the case, my Lord, on the starboard side. The evidence with regard to that is this: Two men, Scott and Dillon, come from the afterpart of the ship, from the engine room, comparatively late in the proceedings, half or three-quarters of an hour before the ship sank. All the boats were gone from the starboard side; all the wooden boats were lowered from the port side, but one of the men - I think it was Scott - got into a boat down the falls.
The Commissioner:
According to the recommendations which had been made to the Board of Trade before this accident happened, it was contemplated that a much larger, or, at any rate, a larger supply of boats would be right.
Mr. Roche:
Yes, my Lord, it was, and I might, without unduly criticising the Board of Trade, say this - and it is the only thing I desire to say about it - that Captain Young represented the reasons on behalf of the Board of Trade for their non-acceptance of the recommendations, of the Advisory Committee, for example.
The Commissioner:
What was his reason?
Mr. Roche:
His reason was broadly this: He was the gentleman who, rightly or wrongly - I am not for a moment saying it was wrongly - thought there was some defect now-a-days in the construction of a large number of the boats - that they were made deep in order to get the requisite capacity instead of being broad and long, and that the depth was a fictitious capacity and did not assist at all. But he said this, apparently: "I have no complaint with the boats of a ship of the 'Titanic' class." He apparently had in mind quite a different kind of ship and quite a different kind of shipowner. He said: "Because I could not get my way with regard to this capacity and could not get my requirements in that matter within the recommendations of the Advisory Committee, which had rejected my recommendations on this other head or had not passed them at the moment, we would not have them at all; until they took the whole we would not have a half." But as the halves were not complements of one another, and related to entirely different matters, it is difficult to see the logical justification for that position. That is all I desire to say with regard to the boats.
My Lord, the last thing I desire to say is with regard to the question of the loss of the engineers. They were all lost, and it is one of the misfortunes of this case, the loss of life is so tremendous that it is idle to complain of any particular loss of life. But, of course, it is one of the misfortunes of the case, not only that such highly competent and skilled engineers were lost, but it is a misfortune to the Court that none of them are here to tell us, as they could, no doubt, a good deal of the operation of the pumps, bulkheads, and other matters which have not and cannot be finally cleared up. What I want to say about them is really again with a view to the future. There is, as your Lordship knows, this disproportion in this case of loss among the engineering staff. It is a disproportion which has prevailed before, and is too commonly found. It is one of the noblest traditions of the engineering profession on board ship that in case of accident the Rule is, "All hands below." Those who instruct me have no desire to weaken the force or effect of that tradition. But the finer the tradition is, the more closely it is observed, the more need is there that the interests of those who carry on the tradition should be safeguarded from the deck, and that they should be given an opportunity, when things are hopeless, of coming on deck and taking their chance with others, of the boat accommodation which one hopes in future will be available. In this case, unfortunately, if they had come, although they might have had some of the empty places in the boats, they would have been excluding others, and therefore it is more with a view to the future than the past that I am addressing these observations to your Lordship.
Now the fact of this case is this: practically speaking, there is no evidence of any engineers being on deck at all after the calamity. There is the evidence of Scott, who speaks, first of all, in answer to the learned Attorney-General about seeing all the engineers on deck when he came on deck, but that was after all the boats were gone. Scott was saved by going into the water and being picked up. That was after all the boats had gone, but it appeared, in answer to myself, that all he was speaking about was some eight engineers - he did not know their names except one - who came from his section, which is the turbine.
The Commissioner:
What page is Scott's evidence?
Mr. Roche:
Pages 124 and 125. In answer to the Attorney-General, at Question 5685, he said when he came and was looking over at the boats, one or two were alongside, but they were all lowered: "All the engineers and firemen and all that." At page 125, Question 5711, I asked him: "How many of them did you see? - (A.) I should say there were about eight of them." Whether he meant eight engineers and firemen or not, I do not know.
The Commissioner:
He is speaking of engineers, I think, and not of firemen: "(Q.) Which of the engineers did you see? Can you tell me their names? - (A.) Mr. Farquharson. I do not know the names of the others. (Q.) How many of them did you see? - (A.) I should say there were about eight of them."
Mr. Roche:
It is a small matter, and those came on deck after the boats were gone. There may have been a general order, I know not, in this case for the engineers to come on deck, but, of course, there were no boats for them, and, obviously, if it were given, it was too late.
The Commissioner:
They had nothing to trust to but their own swimming and the lifebelts.
Mr. Roche:
That is so. I think the truth is this. Mr. Sanderson, one of the Managing Directors, at page 486, Question 19475, said to me: "I think the engineers on the 'Titanic' were fully alive to the danger in which they stood, and that if they did not come on deck it was due to a magnificent conception of their duty." That is a tribute to the engineers which is as just as it is generous, and there is evidence, as Mr. Sanderson pointed out, of their having sent up the firemen in time from the forward part of the ship and having remained there themselves.
All I want and desire is this, that in future cases where there may be, we hope, a sufficiency of boats, there shall be a Rule, not written to this effect. If your Lordship's answer to this question in your Report, which will be widely and universally read, your Lordship would call attention to the paramount necessity of the obligation on those in charge of the deck of seeing in time, before it is too late, before all the boats are gone, that those in charge of the engine room shall have their chance and opportunity of coming on deck, then that is all we desire. The engineers are asking not that they should have an opportunity of neglecting their duty or of weakening the force or the effect of this tradition, but there does come a time when all has been done that can be done, when they should have an opportunity of a fair and equal chance of life. And they are asking your Lordship, if only by a sentence in this Report and in answer to this question, to call attention to the paramount duty and necessity of those in charge of the deck paying heed in that matter to the interests of the engineers.
The Commissioner:
I am very much obliged to you, Mr. Roche. You have taken a very short time and said a very great deal that is useful.
Continued >
