"to report upon the rules and regulations made under the merchant
shipping acts, 1894-1906, and the administration of those acts, and
of such rules and regulations so far as the consideration thereof
is material to this casualty" (No. 26 of the questions submitted to
the court by the board of trade).
Charges were made against the board of trade during the progress of the
inquiry of a twofold kind. First, it was said that the board had been
negligent in that they had failed to keep up to date their rules and
regulations relating generally to the provision of life-saving
appliances at sea, and, secondly, it was said that their officials had
in the particular instance of the _Titanic_ failed to exercise due care
in the supervision of the vessel's plans and the inspection of the work
done upon her.
With reference to the first of these charges, it was reduced in the
course of the inquiry to a charge of neglect to keep the board's scale
for the provision of lifeboat accommodation up to date. The
circumstances are these: In March, 1886, the board appointed a
departmental committee, consisting of three of their principal
officers, to inquire into the question of boats, rafts, and life-saving
apparatus carried by sea-going merchant ships. In their report this
committee pointed out that, as regards boats for ocean-going steamers
carrying large numbers of passengers, the boats would be of little use
in saving life (although they might for a time prolong its existence)
unless succor were at hand from other ships or from proximity to shore;
and speaking with special reference to passenger steam vessels carrying
emigrants across the Atlantic to ports on the east coast of North
America, they said as follows:
Considering the number of vessels employed in this trade, and the
large number of passengers they carry, and also taking into
consideration the stormy character of the ocean they have to cross,
and the thick and foggy weather encountered, we think this class is
the most important of any, and we can not pass over the fact that
of late years this traffic has been carried on with remarkable
immunity from loss of life.
The boat accommodation these vessels are forced to carry when
sailing with emigrants is regulated by the scale in the passengers
act, 1855, which provides for boat accommodation for 216 people as
a maximum, so that, supposing a vessel leaves with 1,000 passengers
and 200 crew under the present statutory requirements, she need
only carry sufficient boat accommodation for 216 of these people.
Thus it will be seen that the boats carried by this class of
vessels are also quite inadequate as an effectual means of saving
life should a disaster happen to a ship with her full complement of
passengers on board. We are glad to be able to say that there are
many liberal and careful shipowners who do all in their power to
provide for the safety of their passengers by equipping their
vessels with boats far in excess of the number required by statute.
But, at the same time, there are others carrying large numbers of
emigrants who do no more than they are required to do by law.
We have gone into this question with reference to this class of
vessels very fully, and have visited many of them, and we think
that the boats required by act should be increased 100 per cent.,
and in addition to them that the owners should be induced to carry
sufficient collapsible boats and approved rafts, so that each ship
shall have sufficient life-saving gear for all on board at any one
time, provided, as said before, that no ship need carry more boat
accommodation than is sufficient for all on board at that time.
In 1887 a select committee of the House of Commons, of which Lord
Charles Beresford was the chairman, was appointed to report on saving
life at sea, and they found in their report--
That many passenger ships could not, without great inconvenience,
carry so many of the ordinary wooden boats as would suffice to
carry the whole of the passengers and crew with safety in bad
weather. Under such circumstances the crew would not be sufficient
to man so many boats; nor could they all be got into the water in
sufficient time in the event of very rapid foundering. Having
regard, however, to the fact that accidents occur probably as often
in moderate weather as in bad, and having regard also to the fact
that the very cause of the accident frequently incapacitates many
of the boats, and to the further fact that an insufficiency of
boats undoubtedly tends to cause panic, we are of opinion that all
sea-going passenger ships should be compelled by law to carry such
boats, and other life-saving apparatus, as would in the aggregate
best provide for the safety of all on board in moderate weather.
As a result of these reports, the merchant shipping (life-saving
appliances) act, 1888, appears to have been passed, under which rules
were made by the board of trade at different dates. The merchant
shipping act, 1894, repealed the act of 1888, and substituted therefor
sections 427 to 431 and the seventeenth schedule of the new act. Under
this act (1894) a table showing the minimum number of boats to be placed
under davits and their minimum cubic contents was issued by the board.
It was dated March 9, 1894, and came into operation on June 1 of that
year. This table was based on the gross tonnage of the vessels to which
it was to apply, and not upon the numbers carried, and it provided that
the number of boats and their capacity should increase as the tonnage
increased. The table, however, stopped short at the point where the
gross tonnage of the vessels reached "10,000 and upwards." As to all
such vessels, whatever their size might be, the minimum number of boats
under davits was fixed by the table at 16, with a total minimum capacity
of 5,500 cubic feet.
But as regarded emigrant steamships there was a rule which provided that
if the boats under davits required by the table did not furnish
sufficient accommodation for all on board, then additional boats of
approved description (whether under davits or not) or approved life
rafts should be carried, and that these additional boats or rafts should
be of at least such carrying capacity that they and the boats required
by the table should provide together in vessels of 5,000 tons and
upwards three-fourths more than the minimum cubic contents required by
the table, so that in the case of an emigrant ship such as the _Titanic_
the requirements under the rules and table together exacted a provision
of 9,625 cubic feet of lifeboat and raft accommodation (5,500 feet in
boats under davits with three-fourths, namely, 4,125, added). Taken at
10 cubic feet per person, this would be equivalent to a provision for
962 persons. No doubt at the time these rules were made and this table
was drawn up it was thought that, having regard to the size of vessels
then built and building, it was unnecessary to carry the table further.
The largest emigrant steamer then afloat was the _Lucania_, of 12,952
tons.
In the report of the select committee of the House of Commons a
reference to water-tight bulkheads had been made, which was in the
following terms:
Though the question of construction was clearly not included in the
reference to the committee, still they think it only right to
state, after having heard the evidence, that the proper placing of
bulkheads, so as to enable a ship to keep afloat for some length of
time after an accident has occurred, is most important for saving
life at sea, and a thing upon which the full efficiency of
life-saving appliances largely depends.
This passage probably explains the insertion in the board of trade's
rules for life-saving appliances of rule No. 12, which is as follows:
_Water-tight compartments._--When ships of any class are divided
into efficient water-tight compartments to the satisfaction of the
board of trade, they shall only be required to carry additional
boats, rafts and buoyant apparatus of one-half of the capacity
required by these rules, but the exemption shall not extend to life
jackets or similar approved articles of equal buoyancy suitable to
be worn on the person.
If this rule had become applicable to the _Titanic_, then the total
cubical lifeboat or raft accommodation which she would have been
required to carry would not have been more than 7,562 (equivalent to
accommodation for 756 persons). It did not, however, become applicable
for the owners never required the board of trade to express any opinion
under the rule as to the efficiency of the water-tight compartments. The
_Titanic_, in fact, carried boat accommodation for 1,178 persons, a
number far in excess of the requirements of the table and rules, and
therefore no concession under rule 12 was needed. Speaking generally,
recourse to this rule (12) by shipowners has been so insignificant that
the rule itself may be regarded as of no practical account.
The foregoing rules with the table were laid before Parliament in the
usual way, and so received the required statutory sanction.
After 1894 steamers were built of a much larger tonnage than 10,000, the
increase culminating in the _Titanic_, with a gross tonnage of 46,328.
As the vessels built increased in size, one would have thought the
necessity for increased lifeboat accommodation would grow; but the rules
and table remained stationary and nothing was done to them by way of
change. The explanation of this long delay (from 1894-1912) was given
before me by Sir Alfred Chalmers, who had served under the board of
trade as nautical adviser from 1896 to August, 1911. He is now retired.
I think it will be well if I give his explanation in his own words. He
says:
I considered the matter very closely from time to time. I first of
all considered the record of the trade--that is to say, the record
of the casualties--and to see what immunity from loss there was. I
found it was the safest mode of travel in the world, and I thought
it was neither right nor the duty of a state department to impose
regulations upon that mode of travel as long as the record was a
clean one. Secondly, I found that as ships grew bigger there were
such improvements made in their construction that they were
stronger and better ships, both from the point of view of
water-tight compartments and also absolute strength, and I
considered that that was the road along which the shipowners were
going to travel, and that they should not be interfered with. I
then went to the maximum that is down in the table, 16 boats and
upward, together with the supplementary boats, and I considered
from my experience that that was the maximum number that could be
rapidly dealt with at sea and that could be safely housed without
incumbering the vessel's decks unduly. In the next place I
considered that the traffic was very safe on account of the routes,
the definite routes being agreed upon by the different companies,
which tended to lessen the risk of collision and to avoid ice and
fog. Then again, there was the question of wireless telegraphy,
which had already come into force on board of these passenger
ships. I was seized of the fact that in July, 1901, the _Lucania_
had been fitted with wireless telegraphy, and the Cunard Line
generally fitted it during that year to all their ships. The Allan
Line fitted it in 1902, and I am not sure that in 1904 it had not
become quite general on the trans-Atlantic ships. That, of course,
entered into my consideration as well. Then another point was the
manning. It was quite evident to me that if you went on crowding
the ships with boats you would require a crew which were not
required otherwise for the safe navigation of the ship, or for the
proper upkeep of the ship, but you are providing a crew which would
be carried uselessly across the ocean, that never would be required
to man the boats. Then the last point, and not the least, was this,
that the voluntary action of the owners was carrying them beyond
the requirements of our scale, and when voluntary action on the
part of shipowners is doing that, I think that any state department
should hold its hand before it steps in to make a hard and fast
scale for that particular type of shipping. I considered that that
scale fitted all sizes of ships that were then afloat, and I did
not consider it necessary to increase it, and that was my advice to
Sir Walter Howell.
I appreciate this explanation, and I think there is much force in it. At
the same time, it seems to me that it does not justify the delay. Even
taking all these matters into consideration, it can not be that the
provision for boat accommodation made in 1894 for vessels of 10,000 tons
and upward remained sufficient to 1910, when vessels of 45,000 tons were
being built. Two considerations demonstrate this. The first is that some
shipowners recognized the insufficiency of the requirements of the board
of trade, and voluntarily exceeded those requirements by providing
larger boat accommodation than the old rules and table exacted. The
second is that shortly before Sir Alfred Chalmers left the board of
trade, the board had begun to direct attention to the amending of their
rules in this connection.
It appears that in November, 1910, a question was asked in the House of
Commons as to whether the attention of the president of the board of
trade had been called to the fact that the _Olympic_, a sister ship of
the _Titanic_, was provided with 14 lifeboats only. The answer given was
that the _Olympic_ (which was then in course of construction) would
carry 14 lifeboats and two ordinary boats of an aggregate capacity of
9,752 cubic feet, which was in excess of the requirements of the
statutory rules. On February 15, 1911, a further question was asked as
to the date of the last regulations, and whether, having regard to the
increased tonnage of modern ships, the desirability of revising the
regulations would be considered by the board of trade. The answer by the
president was:
Those regulations were last revised in 1894. The question of their
further revision is engaging the serious attention of the board of
trade, and I have decided to refer the matter to the merchant
shipping advisory committee for consideration and advice.
Three days afterwards, namely, on February 18, 1911, a circular letter
was sent out by the board of trade to the board's principal officers at
Liverpool, London, and Glasgow asking each of those gentlemen to draft
such an extension of the existing boat scale as he might think
satisfactory and reasonable for the conditions of large passenger
steamers. This circular letter was answered by the principal officer in
Glasgow (Mr. Harris) on February 24, 1911, by the principal officer in
London (Mr. Park) on February 27, 1911, and by the principal officer in
Liverpool (Mr. Young) on March 3, 1911. It is sufficient to say of these
answers that they all suggested a large extension of the statutory
requirements.
Meanwhile, namely, on February 28, 1911, Mr. Archer, the board of
trade's principal ship surveyor, had also drawn up a scale. This was a
more exacting scale than that of any of the three principal officers. By
his scale a vessel of the tonnage of the _Titanic_ would have had to
carry boat accommodation equivalent to at least 24,937 cubic feet, which
would have been sufficient to hold all and more than all the persons who
were on board at the time of the disaster (2,201). It would not,
however, have been nearly sufficient to have held all that the vessel
might lawfully have carried, viz, 3,547, and it is to be observed with
reference to Mr. Archer's scale that in it he suggests an extension of
rule 12, by which (if the vessel were divided into efficient water-tight
compartments) the total boat accommodation might be reduced much more
than rule 12 as it stands would permit. If this reduction be taken into
account, the boat accommodation would fall so that it would be
sufficient only for 1,750 persons. Mr. Archer's view was that shipowners
should be encouraged to increase the floatability of the ships they
built, and that the way to encourage them was to relax the legal
requirements as to boats as their plans advanced in that direction. The
great object was so to build the ship that in the event of a disaster
she would be her own lifeboat.[4]
Having obtained these four reports, the board of trade, on April 4,
1911, submitted the matter to their advisory committee, and obtained the
committee's report on July 4, 1911. The following are copies (with
omissions of immaterial passages) of the board of trade's letter of
April 4, 1911, and of the advisory committee's report of July 4, 1911:
* * * * *